Completeness for Flat Modal Fixpoint Logics

This paper exhibits a general and uniform method to prove completeness for certain modal fixpoint logics. Given a set \Gamma of modal formulas of the form \gamma(x, p1, . . ., pn), where x occurs only positively in \gamma, the language L\sharp (\Gamma) is obtained by adding to the language of polymodal logic a connective \sharp\_\gamma for each \gamma \epsilon. The term \sharp\_\gamma (\varphi1, . . ., \varphin) is meant to be interpreted as the least fixed point of the functional interpretation of the term \gamma(x, \varphi 1, . . ., \varphi n). We consider the following problem: given \Gamma, construct an axiom system which is sound and complete with respect to the concrete interpretation of the language L\sharp (\Gamma) on Kripke frames. We prove two results that solve this problem. First, let K\sharp (\Gamma) be the logic obtained from the basic polymodal K by adding a Kozen-Park style fixpoint axiom and a least fixpoint rule, for each fixpoint connective \sharp\_\gamma. Provided that each indexing formula \gamma satisfies the syntactic criterion of being untied in x, we prove this axiom system to be complete. Second, addressing the general case, we prove the soundness and completeness of an extension K+ (\Gamma) of K\_\sharp (\Gamma). This extension is obtained via an effective procedure that, given an indexing formula \gamma as input, returns a finite set of axioms and derivation rules for \sharp\_\gamma, of size bounded by the length of \gamma. Thus the axiom system K+ (\Gamma) is finite whenever \Gamma is finite

Games for topological fixpoint logic

Topological fixpoint logics are a family of logics that admits topological models and where the fixpoint operators are defined with respect to the topological interpretations. Here we consider a topological fixpoint logic for relational structures based on Stone spaces, where the fixpoint operators are interpreted via clopen sets. We develop a game-theoretic semantics for this logic. First we introduce games characterising clopen fixpoints of monotone operators on Stone spaces. These fixpoint games allow us to characterise the semantics for our topological fixpoint logic using a two-player graph game. Adequacy of this game is the main result of our paper. Finally, we define bisimulations for the topological structures under consideration and use our game semantics to prove that the truth of a formula of our topological fixpoint logic is bisimulation-invariant

Changing a semantics: opportunism or courage?

The generalized models for higher-order logics introduced by Leon Henkin, and their multiple offspring over the years, have become a standard tool in many areas of logic. Even so, discussion has persisted about their technical status, and perhaps even their conceptual legitimacy. This paper gives a systematic view of generalized model techniques, discusses what they mean in mathematical and philosophical terms, and presents a few technical themes and results about their role in algebraic representation, calibrating provability, lowering complexity, understanding fixed-point logics, and achieving set-theoretic absoluteness. We also show how thinking about Henkin's approach to semantics of logical systems in this generality can yield new results, dispelling the impression of adhocness. This paper is dedicated to Leon Henkin, a deep logician who has changed the way we all work, while also being an always open, modest, and encouraging colleague and friend.Comment: 27 pages. To appear in: The life and work of Leon Henkin: Essays on his contributions (Studies in Universal Logic) eds: Manzano, M., Sain, I. and Alonso, E., 201

Completeness of Flat Coalgebraic Fixpoint Logics

Modal fixpoint logics traditionally play a central role in computer science, in particular in artificial intelligence and concurrency. The mu-calculus and its relatives are among the most expressive logics of this type. However, popular fixpoint logics tend to trade expressivity for simplicity and readability, and in fact often live within the single variable fragment of the mu-calculus. The family of such flat fixpoint logics includes, e.g., LTL, CTL, and the logic of common knowledge. Extending this notion to the generic semantic framework of coalgebraic logic enables covering a wide range of logics beyond the standard mu-calculus including, e.g., flat fragments of the graded mu-calculus and the alternating-time mu-calculus (such as alternating-time temporal logic ATL), as well as probabilistic and monotone fixpoint logics. We give a generic proof of completeness of the Kozen-Park axiomatization for such flat coalgebraic fixpoint logics.Comment: Short version appeared in Proc. 21st International Conference on Concurrency Theory, CONCUR 2010, Vol. 6269 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, 2010, pp. 524-53

A Functional (Monadic) Second-Order Theory of Infinite Trees

This paper presents a complete axiomatization of Monadic Second-Order Logic (MSO) over infinite trees. MSO on infinite trees is a rich system, and its decidability ("Rabin's Tree Theorem") is one of the most powerful known results concerning the decidability of logics. By a complete axiomatization we mean a complete deduction system with a polynomial-time recognizable set of axioms. By naive enumeration of formal derivations, this formally gives a proof of Rabin's Tree Theorem. The deduction system consists of the usual rules for second-order logic seen as two-sorted first-order logic, together with the natural adaptation In addition, it contains an axiom scheme expressing the (positional) determinacy of certain parity games. The main difficulty resides in the limited expressive power of the language of MSO. We actually devise an extension of MSO, called Functional (Monadic) Second-Order Logic (FSO), which allows us to uniformly manipulate (hereditarily) finite sets and corresponding labeled trees, and whose language allows for higher abstraction than that of MSO