Recursive Non-Closure Under Right Quotient By A Regular Language #
Recursive languages are not closed under right quotient by a regular language.
The counterexample encodes the unary halting problem. Over Bool, let the regular
suffix language be false*. The recursive numerator consists of words
false^n ++ [true] ++ false^k such that the program encoded by n halts within
bounded time k. Quotienting by false* removes the bounded-time certificate and
leaves exactly the unbounded unary halting language on prefixes false^n ++ [true].
Recursive languages are not closed under right quotient by regular languages.