Unravelling Abstract Cyclic Proofs into Proofs by Induction

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Grotenhuis, Lide, Otten, Daniël
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Grotenhuis, Lide
Otten, Daniël
author_facet Grotenhuis, Lide
Otten, Daniël
contents Cyclic proof theory breaks tradition by allowing certain infinite proofs: those that can be represented by a finite graph, while satisfying a soundness condition. We reconcile cyclic proofs with traditional finite proofs: we extend abstract cyclic proof systems with a well-founded induction principle, and transform any cyclic proof into a finite proof in the extended system. Moreover, this transformation preserves the structure of the cyclic proof. Our results leverage an annotated representation of cyclic proofs, which allows us to extract induction hypotheses and to determine their introduction order. The representation is essentially a reset proof with one key modification: names must be covered in a uniform way before a reset. This innovation allows us to handle cyclic proofs where the underlying inductive sort is non-linear. Our framework is general enough to cover recursive functions satisfying the size-change termination principle, which are viewed as cyclic proofs under the Curry-Howard correspondence.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_12054
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Unravelling Abstract Cyclic Proofs into Proofs by Induction
Grotenhuis, Lide
Otten, Daniël
Logic in Computer Science
Logic
03F07, 03F55
F.4.1; I.2.2; I.2.3
Cyclic proof theory breaks tradition by allowing certain infinite proofs: those that can be represented by a finite graph, while satisfying a soundness condition. We reconcile cyclic proofs with traditional finite proofs: we extend abstract cyclic proof systems with a well-founded induction principle, and transform any cyclic proof into a finite proof in the extended system. Moreover, this transformation preserves the structure of the cyclic proof. Our results leverage an annotated representation of cyclic proofs, which allows us to extract induction hypotheses and to determine their introduction order. The representation is essentially a reset proof with one key modification: names must be covered in a uniform way before a reset. This innovation allows us to handle cyclic proofs where the underlying inductive sort is non-linear. Our framework is general enough to cover recursive functions satisfying the size-change termination principle, which are viewed as cyclic proofs under the Curry-Howard correspondence.
title Unravelling Abstract Cyclic Proofs into Proofs by Induction
topic Logic in Computer Science
Logic
03F07, 03F55
F.4.1; I.2.2; I.2.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12054