Abstract Canonical Inference

An abstract framework of canonical inference is used to explore how different proof orderings induce different variants of saturation and completeness. Notions like completion, paramodulation, saturation, redundancy elimination, and rewrite-system reduction are connected to proof orderings. Fairness of deductive mechanisms is defined in terms of proof orderings, distinguishing between (ordinary) "fairness," which yields completeness, and "uniform fairness," which yields saturation.Comment: 28 pages, no figures, to appear in ACM Trans. on Computational Logi

Canonical extension and canonicity via DCPO presentations

The canonical extension of a lattice is in an essential way a two-sided completion. Domain theory, on the contrary, is primarily concerned with one-sided completeness. In this paper, we show two things. Firstly, that the canonical extension of a lattice can be given an asymmetric description in two stages: a free co-directed meet completion, followed by a completion by \emph{selected} directed joins. Secondly, we show that the general techniques for dcpo presentations of dcpo algebras used in the second stage of the construction immediately give us the well-known canonicity result for bounded lattices with operators.Comment: 17 pages. Definition 5 was revised slightly, without changing any of the result

String compactifications on Calabi-Yau stacks

In this paper we study string compactifications on Deligne-Mumford stacks. The basic idea is that all such stacks have presentations to which one can associate gauged sigma models, where the group gauged need be neither finite nor effectively-acting. Such presentations are not unique, and lead to physically distinct gauged sigma models; stacks classify universality classes of gauged sigma models, not gauged sigma models themselves. We begin by defining and justifying a notion of ``Calabi-Yau stack,'' recall how one defines sigma models on (presentations of) stacks, and calculate of physical properties of such sigma models, such as closed and open string spectra. We describe how the boundary states in the open string B model on a Calabi-Yau stack are counted by derived categories of coherent sheaves on the stack. Along the way, we describe numerous tests that IR physics is presentation-independent, justifying the claim that stacks classify universality classes. String orbifolds are one special case of these compactifications, a subject which has proven controversial in the past; however we resolve the objections to this description of which we are aware. In particular, we discuss the apparent mismatch between stack moduli and physical moduli, and how that discrepancy is resolved.Comment: 85 pages, LaTeX; v2: typos fixe

Smooth affine surfaces with non-unique C*-actions

In this paper we complete the classification of effective C*-actions on smooth affine surfaces up to conjugation in the full automorphism group and up to inversion of C*. If a smooth affine surface V admits more than one C*-action then it is known to be Gizatullin i.e., it can be completed by a linear chain of smooth rational curves. In our previous paper we gave a sufficient condition, in terms of the Dolgachev- Pinkham-Demazure (or DPD) presentation, for the uniqueness of a C*-action on a Gizatullin surface. In the present paper we show that this condition is also necessary, at least in the smooth case. In fact, if the uniqueness fails for a smooth Gizatullin surface V which is neither toric nor Danilov-Gizatullin, then V admits a continuous family of pairwise non-conjugated C*-actions depending on one or two parameters. We give an explicit description of all such surfaces and their C*-actions in terms of DPD presentations. We also show that for every k > 0 one can find a Danilov- Gizatullin surface V (n) of index n = n(k) with a family of pairwise non-conjugate C+-actions depending on k parameters

Second-Order Algebraic Theories

Fiore and Hur recently introduced a conservative extension of universal algebra and equational logic from first to second order. Second-order universal algebra and second-order equational logic respectively provide a model theory and a formal deductive system for languages with variable binding and parameterised metavariables. This work completes the foundations of the subject from the viewpoint of categorical algebra. Specifically, the paper introduces the notion of second-order algebraic theory and develops its basic theory. Two categorical equivalences are established: at the syntactic level, that of second-order equational presentations and second-order algebraic theories; at the semantic level, that of second-order algebras and second-order functorial models. Our development includes a mathematical definition of syntactic translation between second-order equational presentations. This gives the first formalisation of notions such as encodings and transforms in the context of languages with variable binding