Reference. Tachis: Higher-Order Separation Logic with Credits for Expected Costs

We present Tachis, a higher-order separation logic to reason about the expected cost of probabilistic programs. Inspired by the uses of time credits for reasoning about the running time of deterministic programs, we introduce a novel notion of probabilistic cost credit. Probabilistic cost credits are a separation logic resource that can be used to pay for the cost of operations in programs, and that can be distributed across all possible branches of sampling instructions according to their weight, thus enabling us to reason about expected cost. The representation of cost credits as separation logic resources gives Tachis a great deal of flexibility and expressivity. In particular, it permits reasoning about amortized expected cost by storing excess credits as potential into data structures to pay for future operations. Tachis further supports a range of cost models, including running time and entropy usage. We showcase the versatility of this approach by applying our techniques to prove upper bounds on the expected cost of a variety of probabilistic algorithms and data structures, including randomized quicksort, hash tables, and meldable heaps. All of our results have been mechanized using Coq, Iris, and the Coquelicot real analysis library.

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@article{haselwarter-2024-tachis, title={Tachis: Higher-Order Separation Logic with Credits for Expected Costs}, volume={8}, ISSN={2475-1421}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3689753}, DOI={10.1145/3689753}, number={OOPSLA2}, journal={Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages}, publisher={Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)}, author={Haselwarter, Philipp G. and Li, Kwing Hei and de Medeiros, Markus and Gregersen, Simon Oddershede and Aguirre, Alejandro and Tassarotti, Joseph and Birkedal, Lars}, year={2024}, month=Oct, pages={1189–1218} }
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haselwarter-2024-tachis:
  type: article
  title: 'Tachis: Higher-Order Separation Logic with Credits for Expected Costs'
  author:
  - Haselwarter, Philipp G.
  - Li, Kwing Hei
  - name: Medeiros
    given-name: Markus
    prefix: de
  - Gregersen, Simon Oddershede
  - Aguirre, Alejandro
  - Tassarotti, Joseph
  - Birkedal, Lars
  date: 2024-10
  page-range: 1189-1218
  url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3689753
  serial-number:
    doi: 10.1145/3689753
    issn: 2475-1421
  parent:
    type: periodical
    title: Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages
    publisher: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
    issue: OOPSLA2
    volume: 8
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Verifying Exact Samplers for Continuous Distributions with a Discrete Program Logic demedeiros-2026-verifying

Most implementations of sampling algorithms for continuous distributions use floating-point numbers, which introduce round-off errors and approximations. These errors can be difficult to analyze, and can cause security issues when used in algorithms for differential privacy. An alternative is to use exact sampling algorithms based on computable reals, which can lazily generate the digits of a continuous sample to arbitrary precision. However, these algorithms are intricate, and implementing and using them involves a combination of semantically challenging language features, such as probabilistic choice, higher-order functions, and dynamically-allocated mutable state. In this paper we present Continuous-Eris, a higher-order separation logic for verifying the correctness of exact sampling algorithms for computable distributions. To demonstrate Continuous-Eris, we verify the correctness of computable samplers for the uniform, Gaussian, and Laplace distributions, as well as a library for exact real arithmetic for working with generated samples. All of the results in this paper have been verified in the Rocq proof assistant.
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The Compositional Essence of Effectful Cost Analyses: Categorical Foundations and Fibered Logical Relations amorim_effcost

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Cites 57 works (6 here)
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Lilac: A Modal Separation Logic for Conditional Probability li-2023-lilac

We present Lilac, a separation logic for reasoning about probabilistic programs where separating conjunction captures probabilistic independence. Inspired by an analogy with mutable state where sampling corresponds to dynamic allocation, we show how probability spaces over a fixed, ambient sample space appear to be the natural analogue of heap fragments, and present a new combining operation on them such that probability spaces behave like heaps and measurability of random variables behaves like ownership. This combining operation forms the basis for our model of separation, and produces a logic with many pleasant properties. In particular, Lilac has a frame rule identical to the ordinary one, and naturally accommodates advanced features like continuous random variables and reasoning about quantitative properties of programs. Then we propose a new modality based on disintegration theory for reasoning about conditional probability. We show how the resulting modal logic validates examples from prior work, and give a formal verification of an intricate weighted sampling algorithm whose correctness depends crucially on conditional independence structure.
PDF · DOI · arXiv · pldb

Iris from the ground up: A modular foundation for higher-order concurrent separation logic jung_etal_iris_ground_up_2018

Iris is a framework for higher-order concurrent separation logic, which has been implemented in the Coq proof assistant and deployed very effectively in a wide variety of verification projects. Iris was designed with the express goal of simplifying and consolidating the foundations of modern separation logics, but it has evolved over time, and the design and semantic foundations of Iris itself have yet to be fully written down and explained together properly in one place. Here, we attempt to fill this gap, presenting a reasonably complete picture of the latest version of Iris (version 3.1), from first principles and in one coherent narrative.
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Higher-order ghost state jung_higher-order_2016

The development of concurrent separation logic (CSL) has sparked a long line of work on modular verification of sophisticated concurrent programs. Two of the most important features supported by several existing extensions to CSL are higher-order quantification and custom ghost state. However, none of the logics that support both of these features reap the full potential of their combination. In particular, none of them provide general support for a feature we dub “higher-order ghost state”: the ability to store arbitrary higher-order separation-logic predicates in ghost variables. In this paper, we propose higher-order ghost state as a interesting and useful extension to CSL, which we formalize in the framework of Jung et al.‘s recently developed Iris logic. To justify its soundness, we develop a novel algebraic structure called CMRAs (“cameras”), which can be thought of as “step-indexed partial commutative monoids”. Finally, we show that Iris proofs utilizing higher-order ghost state can be effectively formalized in Coq, and discuss the challenges we faced in formalizing them.
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Iris: Monoids and Invariants as an Orthogonal Basis for Concurrent Reasoning jung-2015-iris

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