English

A linear-non-linear model for a computational call-by-value lambda calculus (extended abstract)

Logic in Computer Science 2008-01-08 v1

Abstract

We give a categorical semantics for a call-by-value linear lambda calculus. Such a lambda calculus was used by Selinger and Valiron as the backbone of a functional programming language for quantum computation. One feature of this lambda calculus is its linear type system, which includes a duplicability operator "!" as in linear logic. Another main feature is its call-by-value reduction strategy, together with a side-effect to model probabilistic measurements. The "!" operator gives rise to a comonad, as in the linear logic models of Seely, Bierman, and Benton. The side-effects give rise to a monad, as in Moggi's computational lambda calculus. It is this combination of a monad and a comonad that makes the present paper interesting. We show that our categorical semantics is sound and complete.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0801.0813,
  title  = {A linear-non-linear model for a computational call-by-value lambda calculus (extended abstract)},
  author = {Peter Selinger and Benoît Valiron},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0801.0813},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

15 pages. Preprint, to appear in the proceedings of FOSSACS'08

R2 v1 2026-06-21T09:59:51.044Z