Process equivalences are formal methods that relate programs and system
which, informally, behave in the same way. Since there is no unique notion of
what it means for two dynamic systems to display the same behaviour there are a
multitude of formal process equivalences, ranging from bisimulation to trace
equivalence, categorised in the linear-time branching-time spectrum.
We present a logical framework based on an expressive modal fixpoint logic
which is capable of defining many process equivalence relations: for each such
equivalence there is a fixed formula which is satisfied by a pair of processes
if and only if they are equivalent with respect to this relation. We explain
how to do model checking, even symbolically, for a significant fragment of this
logic that captures many process equivalences. This allows model checking
technology to be used for process equivalence checking. We show how partial
evaluation can be used to obtain decision procedures for process equivalences
from the generic model checking scheme.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2012, arXiv:1210.202