Computing with infinitely many processes: Under assumptions on concurrency and participation

We explore four classic problems in concurrent computing (election, mutual exclusion, consensus, and naming) when the number of processes which may participate is infinite. Partial information about the number of actually participating processes and the concurrency level is shown to affect the possibility and complexity of solving these problems. We survey and generalize work carried out in models with finite bounds on the number of processes, and prove several new results. These include improved bounds for election when participation is required and a new adaptive algorithm for starvation-free mutual exclusion in a model with unbounded concurrency. We also explore models where objects stronger than atomic registers, such as testandset bits, semaphores or read-modify- write registers, are used.