Advanced Topics in Bisimulation and Coinduction

Coinduction is a method for specifying and reasoning about infinite data types and automata with infinite behaviour. In recent years, it has come to play an ever more important role in the theory of computing. It is studied in many disciplines, including process theory and concurrency, modal logic and automata theory. Typically, coinductive proofs demonstrate the equivalence of two objects by constructing a suitable bisimulation relation between them. This collection of surveys is aimed at both researchers and Master's students in computer science and mathematics and deals with various aspects of bisimulation and coinduction, with an emphasis on process theory. Seven chapters cover the following topics: history, algebra and coalgebra, algorithmics, logic, higher-order languages, enhancements of the bisimulation proof method, and probabilities. Exercises are also included to help the reader master new material.

Davide Sangiorgi is Full Professor in Computer Science at the University of Bologna, Italy.

Jan Rutten is a senior researcher at Centrum Wiskunde and Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam and Professor of Theoretical Computer Science at Radboud University, Nijmegen.