2015-12-02: Bob Atkey (MSP)

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 16:51:42 +0000

Bob Atkey (MSP)

Introduction to coherence spaces, and how to use them for dependent session types

Abstract

Coherence spaces are a simplification of Scott domains, introduced by Girard to give a semantics to the polymorphic lambda-calculus. While investigating the structure of coherence spaces, Girard noticed that the denotation of the function type in coherence spaces can be decomposed into two independent constructions: a linear ("use-once") function space, and a many-uses-into-one-use modality. And so Linear Logic was discovered.

Coherence spaces are interesting because they model computation at a low level in terms of interchange of atomic 'tokens' of information. This makes them a useful tool for understanding several different computational phenomena.

In this talk, I'll show how coherence spaces naturally model session types, via Wadler's interpretation of Classical Linear Logic as a session-typed pi-calculus, and how that interpretation extends to an interpretation of a dependently typed version of session types.

2015-12-02 11:00:00 UTC
LT1310