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Helle Hvid Hansen

Publications and source records attributed to Helle Hvid Hansen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Many-valued coalgebraic dynamic logics: Safety and strong completeness via reducibility

We present a coalgebraic framework for studying generalisations of dynamic modal logics such as PDL and game logic in which both the propositions and the semantic structures can take values in an algebra $\mathbf{A}$ of truth-degrees. More precisely, we work with coalgebraic modal logic via $\mathbf{A}$-valued predicate liftings and interpret actions (abstracting programs and games) as $\mathsf{F}$-coalgebras where the functor $\mathsf{F}$ represents some type of $\mathbf{A}$-weighted system. We also allow combinations of crisp propositions with $\mathbf{A}$-weighted systems and vice versa. We introduce coalgebra operations and tests, with a focus on operations that are reducible in the sense that modalities for composed actions can be reduced to compositions of modalities for the constituent actions. We prove that reducible operations are safe for bisimulation and behavioural equivalence, and prove a general strong completeness result, from which we obtain new strong completeness results for $\mathbf{2}$-valued iteration-free PDL with $\mathbf{A}$-weighted accessibility relations when $\mathbf{A}$ is a finite chain, and for many-valued iteration-free game logic with many-valued strategies based on finite Lukasiewicz logic.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2026

Propositional Dynamic Logic has Craig Interpolation: a tableau-based proof

We show that Propositional Dynamic Logic (PDL) has the Craig Interpolation Property. This question has been open for many years. Three proof attempts were published, but later criticized in the literature or retracted. Our proof is based on the main ideas from Borzechowski (1988, master thesis). We define a cyclic tableau system for PDL with a loading mechanism to recognize successful repeats. For this system, we show soundness and completeness via a game. To show interpolation, we modify Maehara's method to work for tableaux with repeats: we first define pre-interpolants at each node, and then use a quasi-tableau to define interpolants for clusters (strongly connected components). In different terms, our method solves the fixpoint equations that characterize the desired interpolants, and the method ensures that the solutions to these equations can be expressed within PDL. The proof is constructive and we show how to compute interpolants. We also make available a Haskell implementation of the proof system that provides interpolants. Lastly, we mention ongoing work to formally verify this proof in the interactive theorem prover Lean, and several questions for future work.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2026

Unambiguous Acceptance of Thin Coalgebras

Automata admitting at most one accepting run per structure, known as unambiguous automata, find applications in verification of reactive systems as they extend the class of deterministic automata whilst maintaining some of their desirable properties. In this paper, we generalise a classical construction of unambiguous automata from thin trees to thin coalgebras for analytic functors. This achieves two goals: extending the existing construction to a larger class of structures, and providing conceptual clarity and parametricity to the construction by formalising it in the coalgebraic framework. As part of the construction, we link automaton acceptance of languages of thin coalgebras to language recognition via so-called coherent algebras, which were previously introduced for studying thin coalgebras. This link also allows us to establish an automata-theoretic characterisation of languages recognised by finite coherent algebras.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2025

Thin Coalgebraic Behaviours Are Inductive

Coalgebras for analytic functors uniformly model graph-like systems where the successors of a state may admit certain symmetries. Examples of successor structure include ordered tuples, cyclic lists and multisets. Motivated by goals in automata-based verification and results on thin trees, we introduce thin coalgebras as those coalgebras with only countably many infinite paths from each state. Our main result is an inductive characterisation of thinness via an initial algebra. To this end, we develop a syntax for thin behaviours and capture with a single equation when two terms represent the same thin behaviour. Finally, for the special case of polynomial functors, we retrieve from our syntax the notion of Cantor-Bendixson rank of a thin tree.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2024

Dual Adjunction Between $Ω$-Automata and Wilke Algebra Quotients

$Ω$-automata and Wilke algebras are formalisms for characterising $ω$-regular languages via their ultimately periodic words. $Ω$-automata read finite representations of ultimately periodic words, called lassos, and they are a subclass of lasso automata. We introduce lasso semigroups as a generalisation of Wilke algebras that mirrors how lasso automata generalise $Ω$-automata, and we show that finite lasso semigroups characterise regular lasso languages. We then show a dual adjunction between lasso automata and quotients of the free lasso semigroup with a recognising set, and as our main result we show that this dual adjunction restricts to one between $Ω$-automata and quotients of the free Wilke algebra with a recognising set.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2024

Correspondence between Composite Theories and Distributive Laws

Composite theories are the algebraic equivalent of distributive laws. In this paper, we delve into the details of this correspondence and concretely show how to construct a composite theory from a distributive law and vice versa. Using term rewriting methods, we also describe when a minimal set of equations axiomatises the composite theory.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2022

Algebraic Presentation of Semifree Monads

Monads and their composition via distributive laws have many applications in program semantics and functional programming. For many interesting monads, distributive laws fail to exist, and this has motivated investigations into weaker notions. In this line of research, Petrişan and Sarkis recently introduced a construction called the semifree monad in order to study semialgebras for a monad and weak distributive laws. In this paper, we prove that an algebraic presentation of the semifree monad M^s on a monad M can be obtained uniformly from an algebraic presentation of M. This result was conjectured by Petrişan and Sarkis. We also show that semifree monads are ideal monads, that the semifree construction is not a monad transformer, and that the semifree construction is a comonad on the category of monads.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2020

Logic-Induced Bisimulations

We define a new logic-induced notion of bisimulation (called $ρ$-bisimulation) for coalgebraic modal logics given by a logical connection, and investigate its properties. We show that it is structural in the sense that it is defined only in terms of the coalgebra structure and the one-step modal semantics and, moreover, can be characterised by a form of relation lifting. Furthermore we compare $ρ$-bisimulations to several well-known equivalence notions, and we prove that the collection of bisimulations between two models often forms a complete lattice. The main technical result is a Hennessy-Milner type theorem which states that, under certain conditions, logical equivalence implies $ρ$-bisimilarity. In particular, the latter does \emph{not} rely on a duality between functors $\mathsf{T}$ (the type of the coalgebras) and $\mathsf{L}$ (which gives the logic), nor on properties of the logical connection $ρ$.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2020

Minimisation in Logical Form

Stone-type dualities provide a powerful mathematical framework for studying properties of logical systems. They have recently been fruitfully explored in understanding minimisation of various types of automata. In Bezhanishvili et al. (2012), a dual equivalence between a category of coalgebras and a category of algebras was used to explain minimisation. The algebraic semantics is dual to a coalgebraic semantics in which logical equivalence coincides with trace equivalence. It follows that maximal quotients of coalgebras correspond to minimal subobjects of algebras. Examples include partially observable deterministic finite automata, linear weighted automata viewed as coalgebras over finite-dimensional vector spaces, and belief automata, which are coalgebras on compact Hausdorff spaces. In Bonchi et al. (2014), Brzozowski's double-reversal minimisation algorithm for deterministic finite automata was described categorically and its correctness explained via the duality between reachability and observability. This work includes generalisations of Brzozowski's algorithm to Moore and weighted automata over commutative semirings. In this paper we propose a general categorical framework within which such minimisation algorithms can be understood. The goal is to provide a unifying perspective based on duality. Our framework consists of a stack of three interconnected adjunctions: a base dual adjunction that can be lifted to a dual adjunction between coalgebras and algebras and also to a dual adjunction between automata. The approach provides an abstract understanding of reachability and observability. We illustrate the general framework on range of concrete examples, including deterministic Kripke frames, weighted automata, topological automata (belief automata), and alternating automata.

cs.FL↗
arXiv2019

Arrow's Theorem Through a Fixpoint Argument

We present a proof of Arrow's theorem from social choice theory that uses a fixpoint argument. Specifically, we use Banach's result on the existence of a fixpoint of a contractive map defined on a complete metric space. Conceptually, our approach shows that dictatorships can be seen as fixpoints of a certain process.

econ.TH↗
arXiv2019

Completeness for Game Logic

Game logic was introduced by Rohit Parikh in the 1980s as a generalisation of propositional dynamic logic (PDL) for reasoning about outcomes that players can force in determined 2-player games. Semantically, the generalisation from programs to games is mirrored by moving from Kripke models to monotone neighbourhood models. Parikh proposed a natural PDL-style Hilbert system which was easily proved to be sound, but its completeness has thus far remained an open problem. In this paper, we introduce a cut-free sequent calculus for game logic, and two cut-free sequent calculi that manipulate annotated formulas, one for game logic and one for the monotone mu-calculus, the variant of the polymodal mu-calculus where the semantics is given by monotone neighbourhood models instead of Kripke structures. We show these systems are sound and complete, and that completeness of Parikh's axiomatization follows. Our approach builds on recent ideas and results by Afshari & Leigh (LICS 2017) in that we obtain completeness via a sequence of proof transformations between the systems. A crucial ingredient is a validity-preserving translation from game logic to the monotone mu-calculus.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2018

Coinductive Foundations of Infinitary Rewriting and Infinitary Equational Logic

We present a coinductive framework for defining and reasoning about the infinitary analogues of equational logic and term rewriting in a uniform, coinductive way. The setup captures rewrite sequences of arbitrary ordinal length, but it has neither the need for ordinals nor for metric convergence. This makes the framework especially suitable for formalizations in theorem provers.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2017

Parity Games and Automata for Game Logic (Extended Version)

Parikh's game logic is a PDL-like fixpoint logic interpreted on monotone neighbourhood frames that represent the strategic power of players in determined two-player games. Game logic translates into a fragment of the monotone $μ$-calculus, which in turn is expressively equivalent to monotone modal automata. Parity games and automata are important tools for dealing with the combinatorial complexity of nested fixpoints in modal fixpoint logics, such as the modal $μ$-calculus. In this paper, we (1) discuss the semantics a of game logic over neighbourhood structures in terms of parity games, and (2) use these games to obtain an automata-theoretic characterisation of the fragment of the monotone $μ$-calculus that corresponds to game logic. Our proof makes extensive use of structures that we call syntax graphs that combine the ease-of-use of syntax trees of formulas with the flexibility and succinctness of automata. They are essentially a graph-based view of the alternating tree automata that were introduced by Wilke in the study of modal $μ$-calculus.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2017

Stream Differential Equations: Specification Formats and Solution Methods

Streams, or infinite sequences, are infinite objects of a very simple type, yet they have a rich theory partly due to their ubiquity in mathematics and computer science. Stream differential equations are a coinductive method for specifying streams and stream operations, and their theory has been developed in many papers over the past two decades. In this paper we present a survey of the many results in this area. Our focus is on the classification of different formats of stream differential equations, their solution methods, and the classes of streams they can define. Moreover, we describe in detail the connection between the so-called syntactic solution method and abstract GSOS.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2015

Weak Completeness of Coalgebraic Dynamic Logics

We present a coalgebraic generalisation of Fischer and Ladner's Propositional Dynamic Logic (PDL) and Parikh's Game Logic (GL). In earlier work, we proved a generic strong completeness result for coalgebraic dynamic logics without iteration. The coalgebraic semantics of such programs is given by a monad T, and modalities are interpreted via a predicate lifting Î whose transpose is a monad morphism from T to the neighbourhood monad. In this paper, we show that if the monad T carries a complete semilattice structure, then we can define an iteration construct, and suitable notions of diamond-likeness and box-likeness of predicate-liftings which allows for the definition of an axiomatisation parametric in T, Î and a chosen set of pointwise program operations. As our main result, we show that if the pointwise operations are "negation-free" and Kleisli composition left-distributes over the induced join on Kleisli arrows, then this axiomatisation is weakly complete with respect to the class of standard models. As special instances, we recover the weak completeness of PDL and of dual-free Game Logic. As a modest new result we obtain completeness for dual-free GL extended with intersection (demonic choice) of games.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2015

Presenting Distributive Laws

Distributive laws of a monad T over a functor F are categorical tools for specifying algebra-coalgebra interaction. They proved to be important for solving systems of corecursive equations, for the specification of well-behaved structural operational semantics and, more recently, also for enhancements of the bisimulation proof method. If T is a free monad, then such distributive laws correspond to simple natural transformations. However, when T is not free it can be rather difficult to prove the defining axioms of a distributive law. In this paper we describe how to obtain a distributive law for a monad with an equational presentation from a distributive law for the underlying free monad. We apply this result to show the equivalence between two different representations of context-free languages.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2015

A Coinductive Framework for Infinitary Rewriting and Equational Reasoning (Extended Version)

We present a coinductive framework for defining infinitary analogues of equational reasoning and rewriting in a uniform way. We define the relation =^infty, notion of infinitary equational reasoning, and ->^infty, the standard notion of infinitary rewriting as follows: =^infty := nu R. ( <-_root + ->_root + lift(R) )^* ->^infty := mu R. nu S. ( ->_root + lift(R) )^* ; lift(S) where lift(R) := { (f(s_1,...,s_n), f(t_1,...,t_n)) | s_1 R t_1,...,s_n R t_n } + id , and where mu is the least fixed point operator and nu is the greatest fixed point operator. The setup captures rewrite sequences of arbitrary ordinal length, but it has neither the need for ordinals nor for metric convergence. This makes the framework especially suitable for formalizations in theorem provers.

cs.LO↗