Exploring the boundaries of monad tensorability on Set

DOI10.2168/LMCS-9(3:22)2013zbMATH Open1287.18004arXiv1309.2128MaRDI QIDQ2848367FDOQ2848367

Lutz Schröder, Paul Blain Levy, S. S. Goncharov, Nathan Bowler

Publication date: 26 September 2013

Published in: Logical Methods in Computer Science (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We study a composition operation on monads, equivalently presented as large equational theories. Specifically, we discuss the existence of tensors, which are combinations of theories that impose mutual commutation of the operations from the component theories. As such, they extend the sum of two theories, which is just their unrestrained combination. Tensors of theories arise in several contexts; in particular, in the semantics of programming languages, the monad transformer for global state is given by a tensor. We present two main results: we show that the tensor of two monads need not in general exist by presenting two counterexamples, one of them involving finite powerset (i.e. the theory of join semilattices); this solves a somewhat long-standing open problem, and contrasts with recent results that had ruled out previously expected counterexamples. On the other hand, we show that tensors with bounded powerset monads do exist from countable powerset upwards.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1309.2128

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zbMATH Keywords

tensor productsmonadsnondeterminismside effects

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Monads (= standard construction, triple or triad), algebras for monads, homology and derived functors for monads (18C15) Semantics in the theory of computing (68Q55)

Cited In (2)

• Initial algebras and final coalgebras consisting of nondeterministic finite trace strategies
• Sum and tensor of quantitative effects

Uses Software

• Haskell

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