Operational Semantics of Resolution and Productivity in Horn Clause Logic

This paper presents a study of operational and type-theoretic properties of different resolution strategies in Horn clause logic. We distinguish four different kinds of resolution: resolution by unification (SLD-resolution), resolution by term-matching, the recently introduced structural resolution, and partial (or lazy) resolution. We express them all uniformly as abstract reduction systems, which allows us to undertake a thorough comparative analysis of their properties. To match this small-step semantics, we propose to take Howard's System H as a type-theoretic semantic counterpart. Using System H, we interpret Horn formulas as types, and a derivation for a given formula as the proof term inhabiting the type given by the formula. We prove soundness of these abstract reduction systems relative to System H, and we show completeness of SLD-resolution and structural resolution relative to System H. We identify conditions under which structural resolution is operationally equivalent to SLD-resolution. We show correspondence between term-matching resolution for Horn clause programs without existential variables and term rewriting.Comment: Journal Formal Aspect of Computing, 201

A Type-Theoretic Approach to Structural Resolution

Structural resolution (or S-resolution) is a newly proposed alternative to SLD-resolution that allows a systematic separation of derivations into term-matching and unification steps. Productive logic programs are those for which term-matching reduction on any query must terminate. For productive programs with coinductive meaning, finite term-rewriting reductions can be seen as measures of observation in an infinite derivation. Ability of handling corecursion in a productive way is an attractive computational feature of S-resolution. In this paper, we make first steps towards a better conceptual understanding of operational properties of S-resolution as compared to SLD-resolution. To this aim, we propose a type system for the analysis of both SLD-resolution and S-resolution. We formulate S-resolution and SLD-resolution as reduction systems, and show their soundness relative to the type system. One of the central methods of this paper is realizability transformation, which makes logic programs productive and non-overlapping. We show that S-resolution and SLD-resolution are only equivalent for programs with these two properties.Comment: LOPSTR 201

Entangling two atoms in spatially separated cavities through both photon emission and absorption processes

We consider a system consisting of a $\Lambda$-type atom and a V-type atom, which are individually trapped in two spatially separated cavities that are connected by an optical fibre. We show that an extremely entangled state of the two atoms can be deterministically generated through both photon emission of the $\Lambda$-type atom and photon absorption of the V-type atom in an ideal situation. The influence of various decoherence processes such as spontaneous emission and photon loss on the fidelity of the entangled state is also investigated. We find that the effect of photon leakage out of the fibre on the fidelity can be greatly diminished in some special cases. As regards the effect of spontaneous emission and photon loss from the cavities, we find that the present scheme with a fidelity higher than 0.98 may be realized under current experiment conditions.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure