Simply typed convertibility is TOWER-complete even for safe lambda-terms

TL;DR

This short paper shows that the problem stays TOWER-complete when the two input terms belong to Blum and Ong's safe $\lambda$-calculus, a fragment of the simply typed $\lambda$-calculus arising from the study of higher-order recursion schemes.

Abstract

We consider the following decision problem: given two simply typed $λ$-terms, are they $β$-convertible? Equivalently, do they have the same normal form? It is famously non-elementary, but the precise complexity - namely TOWER-complete - is lesser known. One goal of this short paper is to popularize this fact. Our original contribution is to show that the problem stays TOWER-complete when the two input terms belong to Blum and Ong's safe $λ$-calculus, a fragment of the simply typed $λ$-calculus arising from the study of higher-order recursion schemes. Previously, the best known lower bound for this safe $β$-convertibility problem was PSPACE-hardness. Our proof proceeds by reduction from the star-free expression equivalence problem, taking inspiration from the author's work with Pradic on "implicit automata in typed $λ$-calculi". These results also hold for $βη$-convertibility.

Theorems & Definitions (24)

• Theorem 1.1
• Theorem 1.2
• Definition 2.1: Takahashi
• Proposition 2.2: AspertiLevy
• proof
• Theorem 2.4
• proof
• Remark 2.5
• Theorem 3.1
• Definition 3.2