The geometry of linear higher-order recursion

Abstract

Imposing linearity and ramification constraints allows to weaken higher-order (primitive) recursion in such a way that the class of representable functions equals the class of polynomial-time computable functions, as the works by Leivant, Hofmann, and others show. This article shows that fine-tuning these two constraints leads to different expressive strengths, some of them lying well beyond polynomial time. This is done by introducing a new semantics, called algebraic context semantics. The framework stems from Gonthier's original work (itself a model of Girard's geometry of interaction) and turns out to be a versatile and powerful tool for the quantitative analysis of normalization in the lambda calculus with constants and higher-order recursion.