Fixed Points In Quantitative Semantics

Abstract

We describe an interpretation of recursive computation in a symmetric monoidal category with infinite biproducts and cofree commutative comonoids (for instance, the category of free modules over a complete semiring). Such categories play a significant role in "quantitative" models of computation: they bear a canonical complete monoid enrichment, but may not be cpo-enriched, making standard techniques for reasoning about fixed points unavailable. By constructing a bifree algebra for the cofree exponential, we obtain fixed points for morphisms in its co-Kleisli category without requiring any order-theoretic structure. These fixed points corresponding to infinite sums of finitary approximants indexed over the nested finite multisets, each representing a unique call-pattern for computation of the fixed point. We illustrate this construction by using it to give a denotational semantics for PCF with non-deterministic choice and scalar weights from a complete semiring, proving that this is computationally adequate with respect to an operational semantics which evaluates a term by taking a weighted sum of the residues of its terminating reduction paths.