A correspondence between rooted planar maps and normal planar lambda terms

A rooted planar map is a connected graph embedded in the 2-sphere, with one edge marked and assigned an orientation. A term of the pure lambda calculus is said to be linear if every variable is used exactly once, normal if it contains no beta-redexes, and planar if it is linear and the use of variables moreover follows a deterministic stack discipline. We begin by showing that the sequence counting normal planar lambda terms by a natural notion of size coincides with the sequence (originally computed by Tutte) counting rooted planar maps by number of edges. Next, we explain how to apply the machinery of string diagrams to derive a graphical language for normal planar lambda terms, extracted from the semantics of linear lambda calculus in symmetric monoidal closed categories equipped with a linear reflexive object or a linear reflexive pair. Finally, our main result is a size-preserving bijection between rooted planar maps and normal planar lambda terms, which we establish by explaining how Tutte decomposition of rooted planar maps (into vertex maps, maps with an isthmic root, and maps with a non-isthmic root) may be naturally replayed in linear lambda calculus, as certain surgeries on the string diagrams of normal planar lambda terms.Comment: Corrected title field in metadat

On the Number of Variables in Special Classes of Random Lambda-Terms

We investigate the number of variables in two special subclasses of lambda-terms that are restricted by a bound of the number of abstractions between a variable and its binding lambda, and by a bound of the nesting levels of abstractions, respectively. These restrictions are on the one hand very natural from a practical point of view, and on the other hand they simplify the counting problem compared to that of unrestricted lambda-terms in such a way that the common methods of analytic combinatorics are applicable. We will show that the total number of variables is asymptotically normally distributed for both subclasses of lambda-terms with mean and variance asymptotically equal to C_1 n and C_2 n, respectively, where the constants C_1 and C_2 depend on the bound that has been imposed. So far we just derived closed formulas for the constants in case of the class of lambda-terms with a bounded number of abstractions between each variable and its binding lambda. However, for the other class of lambda-terms that we consider, namely lambda-terms with a bounded number of nesting levels of abstractions, we investigate the number of variables in the different abstraction levels and thereby exhibit very interesting results concerning the distribution of the variables within those lambda-terms

Composition operators and generalized primes

We study composition operators on the Hardy space $\mathcal{H}^2$ of Dirichlet series with square summable coefficients. Our main result is a necessary condition, in terms of a Nevanlinna-type counting function, for a certain class of composition operators to be compact on $\mathcal{H}^2$. To do that we extend our notions to a Hardy space $\mathcal{H}_{\Lambda}^2$ of generalized Dirichlet series, induced in a natural way by a sequence of Beurling's primes.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication in Proceedings of the AM

On the number of lambda terms with prescribed size of their De Bruijn representation

John Tromp introduced the so-called 'binary lambda calculus' as a way to encode lambda terms in terms of binary words. Later, Grygiel and Lescanne conjectured that the number of binary lambda terms with $m$ free indices and of size $n$ (encoded as binary words of length $n$) is $o(n^{-3/2} \tau^{-n})$ for $\tau \approx 1.963448\ldots$. We generalize the proposed notion of size and show that for several classes of lambda terms, including binary lambda terms with $m$ free indices, the number of terms of size $n$ is $\Theta(n^{-3/2} \rho^{-n})$ with some class dependent constant $\rho$, which in particular disproves the above mentioned conjecture. A way to obtain lower and upper bounds for the constant near the leading term is presented and numerical results for a few previously introduced classes of lambda terms are given

Boltzmann samplers for random generation of lambda terms

Randomly generating structured objects is important in testing and optimizing functional programs, whereas generating random $'l$-terms is more specifically needed for testing and optimizing compilers. For that a tool called QuickCheck has been proposed, but in this tool the control of the random generation is left to the programmer. Ten years ago, a method called Boltzmann samplers has been proposed to generate combinatorial structures. In this paper, we show how Boltzmann samplers can be developed to generate lambda-terms, but also other data structures like trees. These samplers rely on a critical value which parameters the main random selector and which is exhibited here with explanations on how it is computed. Haskell programs are proposed to show how samplers are actually implemented

Linear lambda terms as invariants of rooted trivalent maps

The main aim of the article is to give a simple and conceptual account for the correspondence (originally described by Bodini, Gardy, and Jacquot) between $\alpha$-equivalence classes of closed linear lambda terms and isomorphism classes of rooted trivalent maps on compact oriented surfaces without boundary, as an instance of a more general correspondence between linear lambda terms with a context of free variables and rooted trivalent maps with a boundary of free edges. We begin by recalling a familiar diagrammatic representation for linear lambda terms, while at the same time explaining how such diagrams may be read formally as a notation for endomorphisms of a reflexive object in a symmetric monoidal closed (bi)category. From there, the "easy" direction of the correspondence is a simple forgetful operation which erases annotations on the diagram of a linear lambda term to produce a rooted trivalent map. The other direction views linear lambda terms as complete invariants of their underlying rooted trivalent maps, reconstructing the missing information through a Tutte-style topological recurrence on maps with free edges. As an application in combinatorics, we use this analysis to enumerate bridgeless rooted trivalent maps as linear lambda terms containing no closed proper subterms, and conclude by giving a natural reformulation of the Four Color Theorem as a statement about typing in lambda calculus.Comment: accepted author manuscript, posted six months after publicatio

On Role Logic

We present role logic, a notation for describing properties of relational structures in shape analysis, databases, and knowledge bases. We construct role logic using the ideas of de Bruijn's notation for lambda calculus, an encoding of first-order logic in lambda calculus, and a simple rule for implicit arguments of unary and binary predicates. The unrestricted version of role logic has the expressive power of first-order logic with transitive closure. Using a syntactic restriction on role logic formulas, we identify a natural fragment RL^2 of role logic. We show that the RL^2 fragment has the same expressive power as two-variable logic with counting C^2 and is therefore decidable. We present a translation of an imperative language into the decidable fragment RL^2, which allows compositional verification of programs that manipulate relational structures. In addition, we show how RL^2 encodes boolean shape analysis constraints and an expressive description logic.Comment: 20 pages. Our later SAS 2004 result builds on this wor