# HoCHC: A Refutationally Complete and Semantically Invariant System of Higher-order Logic Modulo Theories

## TL;DR

This paper introduces HoCHC, a resolution proof system for higher-order constrained Horn clauses that is sound, complete, and invariant under semantics, enabling transfer of decidability results from first-order logic to higher-order logic.

## Contribution

It presents a simple, refutationally complete resolution system for higher-order logic modulo theories, with proofs of soundness, completeness, and properties like compactness and semi-decidability.

## Key findings

- Proves HoCHC's soundness and refutational completeness.
- Establishes compactness theorem and semi-decidability for HoCHC.
- Demonstrates transfer of decidability results from first-order logic to higher-order logic.

## Abstract

We present a simple resolution proof system for higher-order constrained Horn clauses (HoCHC) - a system of higher-order logic modulo theories - and prove its soundness and refutational completeness w.r.t. the standard semantics. As corollaries, we obtain the compactness theorem and semi-decidability of HoCHC for semi-decidable background theories, and we prove that HoCHC satisfies a canonical model property. Moreover a variant of the well-known translation from higher-order to 1st-order logic is shown to be sound and complete for HoCHC in standard semantics. We illustrate how to transfer decidability results for (fragments of) 1st-order logic modulo theories to our higher-order setting, using as example the Bernays-Schonfinkel-Ramsey fragment of HoCHC modulo a restricted form of Linear Integer Arithmetic.