Model Checking Linear Logic Specifications

The overall goal of this paper is to investigate the theoretical foundations of algorithmic verification techniques for first order linear logic specifications. The fragment of linear logic we consider in this paper is based on the linear logic programming language called LO (Andreoli and Pareschi 1990) enriched with universally quantified goal formulas. Although LO was originally introduced as a theoretical foundation for extensions of logic programming languages, it can also be viewed as a very general language to specify a wide range of infinite-state concurrent systems (Andreoli 1992; Cervesato 1995). Our approach is based on the relation between backward reachability and provability highlighted in our previous work on propositional LO programs (Bozzano et al. 2002). Following this line of research, we define here a general framework for the bottom-up evaluation of first order linear logic specifications. The evaluation procedure is based on an effective fixpoint operator working on a symbolic representation of infinite collections of first order linear logic formulas. The theory of well quasi-orderings (Abdulla et al. 1996; Finkel and Schnoebelen 2001) can be used to provide sufficient conditions for the termination of the evaluation of non trivial fragments of first order linear logic.