Observing Success in the Pi-Calculus

A contextual semantics - defined in terms of successful termination and may- and should-convergence - is analyzed in the synchronous pi-calculus with replication and a constant Stop to denote success. The contextual ordering is analyzed, some nontrivial process equivalences are proved, and proof tools for showing contextual equivalences are provided. Among them are a context lemma and new notions of sound applicative similarities for may- and should-convergence. A further result is that contextual equivalence in the pi-calculus with Stop conservatively extends barbed testing equivalence in the (Stop-free) pi-calculus and thus results on contextual equivalence can be transferred to the (Stop-free) pi-calculus with barbed testing equivalence