A $\mathbb{Z}$$(\mathbb{Z},\max,+)$-weighted finite automaton on $\sigma$ is given by a finite set $Q$ of states, an element $q_0 \in Q$ known as the initial state, a subset $F \subseteq Q$ known as the accepting states, and a finite subset $\delta \subseteq Q \times \sigma \times \mathbb{Z} \times Q$ known as transitions of the automaton (read $(q,x,v,q') \in \delta$ as “the automaton can jump from state $q$ to state $q'$ while consuming symbol $x$ with multiplicity $v$).
For such an automaton, we define the multiplicity of the word $w = x_1\cdots x_n \in \sigma^*$ to be the summax of the $v_1\cdots v_n$$v_1+\cdots+v_n$ ranging over all accepting paths, that is, all $(q_1,\ldots,q_n)$ and $(v_1,\ldots,v_n)$ such that $q_n\in F$ and $(q_{i-1},x_i,v_i,q_i)\in\delta$ for $1\leq i\leq n$ (note that $q_0$ is the initial state defined with the automaton), or $-\infty$ if there is no accepting path at all. The language $L(A)$ defined by the automaton $A$ is the set of words withhaving nonnegative multiplicity (i.e., such that there exists an accepting path with $v_1+\cdots+v_n \geq 0$).
[Important noteNote on edit: I had initially written this assumes that if a word hasfor automata with weights in the integer ring no accepting path whatsoever it is part$(\mathbb{Z},+,\times)$ (so we take the sum of the language $L(A)$$v_1\cdots v_n$). This strikes me as an odd definition (but it would be even more bizarre to demand both But I realize, after re-reading the question, that there exists an accepting paththe indended meaning is for the weights to be in the andtropical thatsemiring $(\mathbb{Z}\cup\{-\infty\},\max,+)$ (we can forget about the sum of all multiplicities is $\geq 0$weight $-\infty$ by simply omitting the transition). So OP should clarify whether it is really what was intended I'm sorry if this may have caused further confusion.]
Question 1: Is it true that, for every $\mathbb{Z}$$(\mathbb{Z},\max,+)$-weighted finite automaton $A$ there is a deterministic one $D$ such that $L(D) = L(A)$?
Note that if we consider the question of unweightedunweighted automata instead (i.e., all weights are assumed to be $1$$0$) and modify the definition of the language to be the set of words whose multiplicity is $>0$, then the answer to questions 1 and 3 is “yes”: in this setup, to construct $D$ we consider the powerset of the set of states of $A$, and create a transition $(\mathbf{q},x,\mathbf{q}')$ in $D$ when $\mathbf{q}'$ is the set of $q'$ such that the transition $(q,x,q')$ exists in $A$ for some $q\in \mathbf{q}$; the accepting states of $D$ are those that contain some accepting state of $A$, and the initial state of $D$ is the singleton $\{q_0\}$ of the accepting state of $A$. This is a classical construction from automata theory (“determinization”). [The The answer to question 4 is also “yes” in this case (the argument proceeds by first determinizing as just explained, I sketched an explanation in a comment belowthen minimizing the resulting automata, and the simply comparing them).] But the fact that we can have negative multiplicities completely changes things.