2024/07/17 by Zeinab Galal, Jean-Simon Pacaud Lemay, Galal, Zeinab +1
Computer Science · Mathematics · #Category Theory (math.CT) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Mathematics #Homotopy and Cohomology in Algebraic Topology #Logic in Computer Science (cs.LO) #Logic, programming, and type systems #Polynomial and algebraic computation
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2407.12691
openalex publication_date 2024/07/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Interactions between derivatives and fixpoints have many important applications in both computer science and mathematics. In this paper, we provide a categorical framework to combine fixpoints with derivatives by studying Cartesian differential categories with a fixpoint operator. We introduce an additional axiom relating the derivative of a fixpoint with the fixpoint of the derivative. We show how the standard examples of Cartesian differential categories where we can compute fixpoints provide canonical models of this notion. We also consider when the fixpoint operator is a Conway operator, or when the underlying category is closed. As an application, we show how this framework is a suitable setting to formalize the Newton-Raphson optimization for fast approximation of fixpoints and extend it to higher order languages.