SOS for higher order processes

We lay the foundations for a Structural Operational Semantics (SOS) framework for higher order processes. Then, we propose a number of extensions to Bernstein’s promoted tyft/tyxt format which aims at proving congruence of strong bisimilarity for higher order processes. The extended format is called promoted PANTH. This format is easier to apply and strictly more expressive than the promoted tyft/tyxt format. Furthermore, we propose and prove a congruence format for a notion of higher order bisimilarity arising naturally from our SOS framework. To illustrate our formats, we apply them to Thomsen’s Calculus of Higher Order Communicating Systems (CHOCS)