A Logic of Secrecy on Simplicial Models
This work addresses a foundational gap in epistemic logic for multi-agent systems by providing a geometric semantics for secrecy, which is incremental as it builds on existing simplicial models.
The paper tackles the problem of modeling secrecy in multi-agent systems using simplicial models, which traditionally only capture knowledge, by introducing a new secrecy operator and proving soundness and completeness for a logic system in multi-agent cases.
We develop a logic of secrecy on simplicial models for multi-agent systems. Standard simplicial models provide a geometric semantics for knowledge by representing global states as facets of a chromatic simplicial complex and agents' local states as coloured vertices. However, secrecy cannot in general be captured as a genuinely new modality by relying on the ordinary simplicial knowledge structure alone. This motivates the introduction of an additional secrecy layer. To this end, we define \emph{simplicial secrecy models}, which enrich standard simplicial epistemic models with agent-relative secrecy neighborhood functions attached to local states. On this basis, we introduce a primitive secrecy operator $S_aÏ$. Semantically, $S_aÏ$ holds when agent $a$ knows $Ï$ in the ordinary simplicial sense and, moreover, the truth set of $Ï$ belongs to one of the designated secrecy neighborhoods associated with $a$'s current local state. The clause for secrecy thus combines an ordinary knowledge requirement with an additional local-state-based neighborhood requirement, while the frame condition ensures that designated secrecy events remain non-trivial from the perspective of every other agent. We formulate a system $\mathsf{SSL}$ for the resulting language and show that it is sound with respect to the class of simplicial secrecy models. For the genuinely multi-agent case $|A|\ge 2$, we prove completeness by first constructing an auxiliary-colour canonical model and then representing it inside the original class of pure $A$-chromatic simplicial secrecy models. The resulting framework yields a primitive, local-state-based, and geometrically grounded account of secrecy on simplicial models, together with a sound axiomatization and, in the genuinely multi-agent case, a complete one.