Unrestricted 2DFA simulation of 1NFAs: A Quadratic Limitation to a New Lower Bound

A recent result by the present authors established a quadratic lower bound, in the worst case, for the increase in the number of states when a one-way nondeterministic finite automaton is converted to a two-way deterministic finite automaton. Although this simply matched a well-known pre-existing quadratic lower bound by Chrobak, it used a distinct proof method. We show that, much like Chrobak’s, this new method is also unable to deliver any lower bound strictly greater than quadratic.