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Hugo Herbelin

Publications and source records attributed to Hugo Herbelin.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Proving and Computing: The Infinite Pigeonhole Principle and Countable Choice

Structural recursion is a common technique used by programmers in modern languages and is taught to introductory computer science students. But what about its dual, structural corecursion? Structural corecursion is an elegant technique, supported in languages like Haskell and proof assistants such as Rocq or Agda. It enables the design of compositional algorithms by decoupling the generation and consumption of potentially infinite or large data collections. Despite these strengths, structural corecursion is generally considered more advanced than structural recursion and is primarily studied in the context of pure functional programming. Our aim is to illustrate the expressive power of different notions of structural corecursion in the presence of classical reasoning. More specifically, we study coiteration and corecursion combined with the classical callcc operator, which provides a computational interpretation of classical reasoning. This combination enables interesting stream-processing algorithms. As an application, we present a corecursive, control-based proof of the Infinite Pigeonhole Principle and compare it with the continuation-passing proof of Escard\'o and Oliva in Agda. To further demonstrate the power of mixing corecursion and control, we give an implementation of the Axiom of Countable Choice. In contrast to the usual continuation-passing implementations of this axiom, which rely on general recursion whose termination is established externally, our approach justifies termination by coiteration alone.

cs.PL↗
arXiv2026

The very dependent recursive structure of iterated parametricity in indexed form

Reynolds' parametricity originally equips types with proof-irrelevant binary propositional relations over the types. But such relations can also be taken proof-relevant or unary, and described either in an indexed or fibred way. Parametricity can be iterated, and when types are sets, this results in an interpretation of sets as augmented simplicial sets in the unary case, or cubical sets in the binary case. In earlier work, equations were given describing the n-ary iterated parametricity translation of sets in indexed form. The construction was formalised in Rocq by induction on a large structure embedding equational reasoning. The current work analyses the dependency structure of the earlier work leading to a presentation of the construction replacing equational reasoning with definitional reasoning. The new construction is very dependent, based on an induction that requires interleaving the specification of the induction hypothesis and the construction of the induction step. At the same time, the construction reduces to its computational essence and can be described in full detail, closely following the new machine-checked formalisation.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2024

On the logical structure of some maximality and well-foundedness principles equivalent to choice principles

We study the logical structure of Teichm{\"u}ller-Tukey lemma, a maximality principle equivalent to the axiom of choice and show that it corresponds to the generalisation to arbitrary cardinals of update induction, a well-foundedness principle from constructive mathematics classically equivalent to the axiom of dependent choice.From there, we state general forms of maximality and well-foundedness principles equivalent to the axiom of choice, including a variant of Zorn's lemma. A comparison with the general class of choice and bar induction principles given by Brede and the first author is initiated.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2024

An analysis of the constructive content of Henkin's proof of G\"odel's completeness theorem

G{\"o}del's completeness theorem for classical first-order logic is one of the most basic theorems of logic. Central to any foundational course in logic, it connects the notion of valid formula to the notion of provable formula.We survey a few standard formulations and proofs of the completeness theorem before focusing on the formal description of a slight modification of Henkin's proof within intuitionistic second-order arithmetic.It is standard in the context of the completeness of intuitionistic logic with respect to various semantics such as Kripke or Beth semantics to follow the Curry-Howard correspondence and to interpret the proofs of completeness as programs which turn proofs of validity for these semantics into proofs of derivability.We apply this approach to Henkin's proof to phrase it as a program which transforms any proof of validity with respect to Tarski semantics into a proof of derivability.By doing so, we hope to shed an effective light on the relation between Tarski semantics and syntax: proofs of validity are syntactic objects with which we can compute.

math.LO↗
arXiv2023

A parametricity-based formalization of semi-simplicial and semi-cubical sets

Semi-simplicial and semi-cubical sets are commonly defined as presheaves over respectively, the semi-simplex or semi-cube category. Homotopy Type Theory then popularized an alternative definition, where the set of n-simplices or n-cubes are instead regrouped into the families of the fibers over their faces, leading to a characterization we call indexed. Moreover, it is known that semi-simplicial and semi-cubical sets are related to iterated Reynolds parametricity, respectively in its unary and binary variants. We exploit this correspondence to develop an original uniform indexed definition of both augmented semi-simplicial and semi-cubical sets, and fully formalize it in Coq.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2021

On the logical structure of choice and bar induction principles

We develop an approach to choice principles and their contrapositive bar-induction principles as extensionality schemes connecting an ''intensional'' or ''effective'' view of respectively ill-and well-foundedness properties to an ''extensional'' or ''ideal'' view of these properties. After classifying and analysing the relations between different intensional definitions of ill-foundedness and well-foundedness, we introduce, for a domain $A$, a codomain $B$ and a ''filter'' $T$ on finite approximations of functions from $A$ to $B$, a generalised form GDC$_{A,B,T}$ of the axiom of dependent choice and dually a generalised bar induction principle GBI$_{A,B,T}$ such that: - GDC$_{A,B,T}$ intuitionistically captures the strength of $\bullet$ the general axiom of choice expressed as $\forall a\exists\beta R(a, b) \Rightarrow\exists\alpha\forall a R(\alpha,(a \alpha (a)))$ when $T$ is a filter that derives point-wise from a relation $R$ on $A x B$ without introducing further constraints, $\bullet$ the Boolean Prime Filter Theorem / Ultrafilter Theorem if $B$ is the two-element set $\mathbb{B}$ (for a constructive definition of prime filter), $\bullet$ the axiom of dependent choice if $A = \mathbb{N}$, $\bullet$ Weak K{\"o}nig's Lemma if $A = \mathbb{N}$ and $B = \mathbb{B}$ (up to weak classical reasoning) - GBI$_{A,B,T}$ intuitionistically captures the strength of $\bullet$ G{\"o}del's completeness theorem in the form validity implies provability for entailment relations if $B = \mathbb{B}$, $\bullet$ bar induction when $A = \mathbb{N}$, $\bullet$ the Weak Fan Theorem when $A = \mathbb{N}$ and $B = \mathbb{B}$. Contrastingly, even though GDC$_{A,B,T}$ and GBI$_{A,B,T}$ smoothly capture several variants of choice and bar induction, some instances are inconsistent, e.g. when $A$ is $\mathbb{B}^\mathbb{N}$ and $B$ is $\mathbb{N}$.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2018

Realizability Interpretation and Normalization of Typed Call-by-Need $$λ$$-calculus With Control

We define a variant of realizability where realizers are pairs of a term and a substitution. This variant allows us to prove the normalization of a simply-typed call-by-need $$λ$-$calculus with control due to Ariola et al. Indeed, in such call-by-need calculus, substitutions have to be delayed until knowing if an argument is really needed. In a second step, we extend the proof to a call-by-need $$λ$$-calculus equipped with a type system equivalent to classical second-order predicate logic, representing one step towards proving the normalization of the call-by-need classical second-order arithmetic introduced by the second author to provide a proof-as-program interpretation of the axiom of dependent choice.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2015

Automatic and Transparent Transfer of Theorems along Isomorphisms in the Coq Proof Assistant

In mathematics, it is common practice to have several constructions for the same objects. Mathematicians will identify them modulo isomorphism and will not worry later on which construction they use, as theorems proved for one construction will be valid for all. When working with proof assistants, it is also common to see several data-types representing the same objects. This work aims at making the use of several isomorphic constructions as simple and as transparent as it can be done informally in mathematics. This requires inferring automatically the missing proof-steps. We are designing an algorithm which finds and fills these missing proof-steps and we are implementing it as a plugin for Coq.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2014

The Rooster and the Syntactic Bracket

We propose an extension of pure type systems with an algebraic presentation of inductive and co-inductive type families with proper indices. This type theory supports coercions toward from smaller sorts to bigger sorts via explicit type construction, as well as impredicative sorts. Type families in impredicative sorts are constructed with a bracketing operation. The necessary restrictions of pattern-matching from impredicative sorts to types are confined to the bracketing construct. This type theory gives an alternative presentation to the calculus of inductive constructions on which the Coq proof assistant is an implementation.

cs.LO↗
arXiv2010

Kripke Models for Classical Logic

We introduce a notion of Kripke model for classical logic for which we constructively prove soundness and cut-free completeness. We discuss the novelty of the notion and its potential applications.

math.LO↗
arXiv2007

Abstract machines for dialogue games

The notion of abstract Boehm tree has arisen as an operationally-oriented distillation of works on game semantics, and has been investigated in two papers. This paper revisits the notion, providing more syntactic support and more examples (like call-by-value evaluation) illustrating the generality of the underlying computing device. Precise correspondences between various formulations of the evaluation mechanism of abstract Boehm trees are established.

cs.LO↗