The Laboratoire Méthodes Formelles (LMF) was founded on 1 January 2021 as a joint research centre of University Paris-Saclay, CNRS, ENS Paris-Saclay, Inria, and CentraleSupélec with a main focus on formal methods. The new laboratory combines the expertise of about 100 members from the former Laboratoire Spécification et Vérification (LSV) and the VALS team of Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique (LRI).

In our mission to enlighten the digital world through Mathematical Logic, we rely on formal methods as a tool to analyse, model, and reason about computing systems, such as computer programs, security protocols, and hardware designs. Our research targets a wide range of computational paradigms, from classical to emerging ones such as biological and quantum computing.

LMF is structured around three hubs: Proofs and Models, which lie at the heart of our historical background, and Interactions, that is aimed at fostering cross-fertilisation between formal methods and other domains in computing science and beyond.

Aliaume Lopez received the 2024 E. W. Beth Dissertation Prize for his thesis First Order Preservation Theorems in Finite Model Theory : Locality, Topology, and Limit Constructions.

The prize, named in honor of the Dutch mathematician Evert Willem Beth, was established in 1998 by the Association for Logic, Language, and Information (FoLLI) and is awarded annually for outstanding dissertations in the fields of Logic, Language, and Information.

Aliaume prepared his thesis under the joint supervision of Jean Goubault-Larrecq at LSV, then LMF, and of Sylvain Schmitz at IRIF.

Distributed Bacterial Circuit Design

Oct 1 10:00 ₂₀₂₄

Tuesday, 1 October 2024 at 10:00am

ENS Paris-Saclay, room 1B26

Abstract. Biological circuits often suffer from high noise and high cellular burden that can lead to cell death. In this thesis, we explore distributed biological circuit design to present solutions for biological computations in high-noise environments. We first designed a new language oriented to the distributed circuit design, solving the limitations of previously existing tools. Secondly, we presented a distributed algorithm for distributed biological circuits that coordinates a population of cells to find an analyte of interest resistant to noise. The algorithm is more sensitive than the state-of-the-art individual cell algorithms. Finally, we provide a new algorithm to validate the previous algorithm using quasi-stationary distributions in a stochastic model instead of our initially used deterministic ordinary differential equation model.

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On Quantum Programming Languages

Sep 24 10:00 ₂₀₂₄

Tuesday 24 September 2024, at 10h

Salle des Thèses, Bâtiment 650 Ada Lovelace

The event will be held in a hybrid format.

Abstract

This thesis—Habilitation à diriger des recherches—presents some of my research contributions since my Ph.D defense in 2008. I have had the chance to participate in the development of quantum programming languages since their early developments: the presentation aims to present my point of view on the evolution of the subject, my contributions, and the current research trends in the community. The target audience is a graduate student interested in pointers to the field of quantum programming languages.

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Toutes nos félicitations à Gaspard Fougea pour le prix du jury reçu à la finale Université Paris-Saclay du concours Ma thèse en 180 secondes.

Gaspard prépare sa thèse « Modèles formels pour la conscience : de l’expérience subjective aux algorithmes cognitifs » au LMF sous la direction d'Alain Finkel et Stéphane le Roux.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYZ5LvZieOA

Xavier Denis, ancien doctorant du LMF, encadré par Jacques-Henri Jourdan et Claude Marché, a reçu le prix de thèse du GdR Génie de la Programmation et Logiciel, décerné mardi 5 juin lors des journées nationales du GdR.

Sa thèse est intitulée Deductive Verification for Rust Programs. Félicitations à Xavier pour son excellent travail !

Plus d'informations sur le site du GdR.

Hubert Comon-Lundh received the LICS Test-of-Time Award 2023 for the article Intruder Deductions, Constraint Solving and Insecurity Decision in Presence of Exclusive Or (ArXiv preprint) co-authored with Vitaly Shmatikov (SRI International). The award was shared with the related paper An NP Decision Procedure for Protocol Insecurity with XOR by Yannick Chevalier, Ralf Küsters, Michaël Rusinowitch, and Mathieu Turuani.

Cryptographic protocols rely on cryptographic primitives to achieve goals such as data privacy and data authenticity in the presence of an attacker. Their use in important applications such as communications over the Internet or credit card payments calls for the automated verification of their security. These two papers made important progress on algorithmic aspects of protocol verification with additional operators, including XOR which is widely used in real-life applications.

Specifically, these papers establish the decidability of insecurity of cryptographic protocols with XOR and other equational theories. Chevalier et al. prove membership in NP when restricted to XOR, while Comon and Shmatikov prove decidability in a broader setting. In addition to definitively settling the complexity question for these cases, the lasting value of this line of work is demonstrated by mature verification tools such as ProVerif, Tamarin, Maude-NPA, and CPSA.— Jury Laudation

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