In this work we consider two rich subclasses of weighted automata over fields: polynomially ambiguous weighted automata and copyless cost register automata. Primarily we are interested in understanding their expressiveness power. Over the field of rationals and $1$-letter alphabets, it is known that the two classes coincide; they are equivalent to linear recurrence sequences (LRS) whose exponential bases are roots of rationals. We develop a tool we call Pumping Sequence Families, which, by exploiting the simple single-letter behaviour of the models, yields two pumping-like results over arbitrary fields with unrestricted alphabets, one for each class. As a corollary of these results, we present examples proving that the two classes become incomparable over the field of rationals with unrestricted alphabets. We complement the results by analysing the zeroness and equivalence problems. For weighted automata (even unrestricted) these problems are well understood: there are polynomial time, and even NC$^2$ algorithms. For copyless cost register automata we show that the two problems are \textsc{PSpace}-complete, where the difficulty is to show the lower bound.

The (left) linear hull of a weighted automaton over a field is a topological invariant. If the automaton is minimal, the linear hull can be used to determine whether or not the automaton is equivalent to a deterministic one. Furthermore, the linear hull can also be used to determine whether the minimal automaton is equivalent to an unambiguous one. We show how to compute the linear hull, and thus prove that it is decidable whether or not a given automaton over a number field is equivalent to a deterministic one. In this case we are also able to compute an equivalent deterministic automaton. We also show the analogous decidability and computability result for the unambiguous case. Our results resolve a problem posed in a 2006 survey by Lombardy and Sakarovitch.