Certification Problem

Input (COPS 694)

We consider the TRS containing the following rules:

c → b (1)
h(b,a) → b (2)
a → f(a) (3)
h(a,h(c,c)) → f(h(b,f(c))) (4)
f(h(b,f(c))) → f(a) (5)

The underlying signature is as follows:

{c/0, b/0, h/2, a/0, f/1}

Property / Task

Prove or disprove confluence.

Answer / Result

No.

Proof (by csi @ CoCo 2020)

1 Non-Joinable Fork

The system is not confluent due to the following forking derivations.

t0 = h(a,h(c,c))
→ h(a,h(b,c))
→ h(f(a),h(b,c))
→ h(f(a),h(b,b))
= t3

t0 = h(a,h(c,c))
→ f(h(b,f(c)))
→ f(h(b,f(b)))
= t2

The two resulting terms cannot be joined for the following reason: