Partial order reduction: Model-checking using representatives

Partial order reductions is a family of techniques for diminishing the state-space explosion problem for model-checking concurrent programs. It is based on the observation that execution sequences of a concurrent program can be grouped together into equivalence classes that are indistinguishable by the property to be checked. Applying the reduction constructs a reduced state-space that generates at least one representative for each equivalence class. This paper surveys some algorithms for partial order model-checking. The presentation focuses on the verification using representatives approach. The reduction approach is extended to branching specifications.