From Bezout's Identity to Space-Optimal Election in Anonymous Memory Systems

An anonymous shared memory REG can be seen as an array of atomic registers such that there is no a priori agreement among the processes on the names of the registers. As an example a very same physical register can be known as REG[x] by a process p and as REG[y] (where y ≠ x) by another process q. Moreover, the register known as REG[a] by a process p and the register known as REG[b] by a process q can be the same physical register. It is assumed that each process has a unique identifier that can only be compared for equality. This article is on solving the d-election problem, in which it is required to elect at least one and at most d leaders, in such an anonymous shared memory system. We notice that the 1-election problem is the familiar leader election problem. Let n be the number of processes and m the size of the anonymous memory (number of atomic registers). The article shows that the condition gcd(m, n) ≤ d is necessary and sufficient for solving the d-election problem, where communication is through read/write or read+modify+write registers. The algorithm used to prove the sufficient condition relies on Bezout's Identity - a Diophantine equation relating numbers according to their Greatest Common Divisor. Furthermore, in the process of proving the sufficient condition, it is shown that 1-leader election can be solved using only a single read/write register (which refutes a 1989 conjecture stating that three non-anonymous registers are necessary), and that the exact d-election problem, where exactly d leaders must be elected, can be solved if and only if gcd(m, n) divides d.