2,891 research outputs found
Formalising the pi-calculus using nominal logic
We formalise the pi-calculus using the nominal datatype package, based on
ideas from the nominal logic by Pitts et al., and demonstrate an implementation
in Isabelle/HOL. The purpose is to derive powerful induction rules for the
semantics in order to conduct machine checkable proofs, closely following the
intuitive arguments found in manual proofs. In this way we have covered many of
the standard theorems of bisimulation equivalence and congruence, both late and
early, and both strong and weak in a uniform manner. We thus provide one of the
most extensive formalisations of a process calculus ever done inside a theorem
prover.
A significant gain in our formulation is that agents are identified up to
alpha-equivalence, thereby greatly reducing the arguments about bound names.
This is a normal strategy for manual proofs about the pi-calculus, but that
kind of hand waving has previously been difficult to incorporate smoothly in an
interactive theorem prover. We show how the nominal logic formalism and its
support in Isabelle accomplishes this and thus significantly reduces the tedium
of conducting completely formal proofs. This improves on previous work using
weak higher order abstract syntax since we do not need extra assumptions to
filter out exotic terms and can keep all arguments within a familiar
first-order logic.Comment: 36 pages, 3 figure
Towards the Formal Reliability Analysis of Oil and Gas Pipelines
It is customary to assess the reliability of underground oil and gas
pipelines in the presence of excessive loading and corrosion effects to ensure
a leak-free transport of hazardous materials. The main idea behind this
reliability analysis is to model the given pipeline system as a Reliability
Block Diagram (RBD) of segments such that the reliability of an individual
pipeline segment can be represented by a random variable. Traditionally,
computer simulation is used to perform this reliability analysis but it
provides approximate results and requires an enormous amount of CPU time for
attaining reasonable estimates. Due to its approximate nature, simulation is
not very suitable for analyzing safety-critical systems like oil and gas
pipelines, where even minor analysis flaws may result in catastrophic
consequences. As an accurate alternative, we propose to use a
higher-order-logic theorem prover (HOL) for the reliability analysis of
pipelines. As a first step towards this idea, this paper provides a
higher-order-logic formalization of reliability and the series RBD using the
HOL theorem prover. For illustration, we present the formal analysis of a
simple pipeline that can be modeled as a series RBD of segments with
exponentially distributed failure times.Comment: 15 page
Perfect zero knowledge for quantum multiprover interactive proofs
In this work we consider the interplay between multiprover interactive
proofs, quantum entanglement, and zero knowledge proofs - notions that are
central pillars of complexity theory, quantum information and cryptography. In
particular, we study the relationship between the complexity class MIP, the
set of languages decidable by multiprover interactive proofs with quantumly
entangled provers, and the class PZKMIP, which is the set of languages
decidable by MIP protocols that furthermore possess the perfect zero
knowledge property.
Our main result is that the two classes are equal, i.e., MIP
PZKMIP. This result provides a quantum analogue of the celebrated result of
Ben-Or, Goldwasser, Kilian, and Wigderson (STOC 1988) who show that MIP
PZKMIP (in other words, all classical multiprover interactive protocols can be
made zero knowledge). We prove our result by showing that every MIP
protocol can be efficiently transformed into an equivalent zero knowledge
MIP protocol in a manner that preserves the completeness-soundness gap.
Combining our transformation with previous results by Slofstra (Forum of
Mathematics, Pi 2019) and Fitzsimons, Ji, Vidick and Yuen (STOC 2019), we
obtain the corollary that all co-recursively enumerable languages (which
include undecidable problems as well as all decidable problems) have zero
knowledge MIP protocols with vanishing promise gap
Quantum Proofs
Quantum information and computation provide a fascinating twist on the notion
of proofs in computational complexity theory. For instance, one may consider a
quantum computational analogue of the complexity class \class{NP}, known as
QMA, in which a quantum state plays the role of a proof (also called a
certificate or witness), and is checked by a polynomial-time quantum
computation. For some problems, the fact that a quantum proof state could be a
superposition over exponentially many classical states appears to offer
computational advantages over classical proof strings. In the interactive proof
system setting, one may consider a verifier and one or more provers that
exchange and process quantum information rather than classical information
during an interaction for a given input string, giving rise to quantum
complexity classes such as QIP, QSZK, and QMIP* that represent natural quantum
analogues of IP, SZK, and MIP. While quantum interactive proof systems inherit
some properties from their classical counterparts, they also possess distinct
and uniquely quantum features that lead to an interesting landscape of
complexity classes based on variants of this model.
In this survey we provide an overview of many of the known results concerning
quantum proofs, computational models based on this concept, and properties of
the complexity classes they define. In particular, we discuss non-interactive
proofs and the complexity class QMA, single-prover quantum interactive proof
systems and the complexity class QIP, statistical zero-knowledge quantum
interactive proof systems and the complexity class \class{QSZK}, and
multiprover interactive proof systems and the complexity classes QMIP, QMIP*,
and MIP*.Comment: Survey published by NOW publisher
Stronger Methods of Making Quantum Interactive Proofs Perfectly Complete
This paper presents stronger methods of achieving perfect completeness in
quantum interactive proofs. First, it is proved that any problem in QMA has a
two-message quantum interactive proof system of perfect completeness with
constant soundness error, where the verifier has only to send a constant number
of halves of EPR pairs. This in particular implies that the class QMA is
necessarily included by the class QIP_1(2) of problems having two-message
quantum interactive proofs of perfect completeness, which gives the first
nontrivial upper bound for QMA in terms of quantum interactive proofs. It is
also proved that any problem having an -message quantum interactive proof
system necessarily has an -message quantum interactive proof system of
perfect completeness. This improves the previous result due to Kitaev and
Watrous, where the resulting system of perfect completeness requires
messages if not using the parallelization result.Comment: 41 pages; v2: soundness parameters improved, correction of a minor
error in Lemma 23, and removal of the sentences claiming that our techniques
are quantumly nonrelativizin
Methods to Model-Check Parallel Systems Software
We report on an effort to develop methodologies for formal verification of
parts of the Multi-Purpose Daemon (MPD) parallel process management system. MPD
is a distributed collection of communicating processes. While the individual
components of the collection execute simple algorithms, their interaction leads
to unexpected errors that are difficult to uncover by conventional means. Two
verification approaches are discussed here: the standard model checking
approach using the software model checker SPIN and the nonstandard use of a
general-purpose first-order resolution-style theorem prover OTTER to conduct
the traditional state space exploration. We compare modeling methodology and
analyze performance and scalability of the two methods with respect to
verification of MPD.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
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