Normalisation is Insensible to \lambda-Term Identity or Difference

This paper analyses the computational behaviour of lambda-term applications. The properties we are interested in are weak normalisation (i.e. there is a terminating reduction) and strong normalisation (i.e. all reductions are terminating). One can prove that the application of a lambda-term M to a fixed number n of copies of the same arbitrary strongly normalising lambda-term is strongly normalising if and only if the application of M to n different arbitrary strongly normalising lambda-terms is strongly normalising, i.e. one has that M (X ... X)/n is strongly normalising, for an arbitrary strongly normalising X, if and only if MX
₁
...X
_n
is strongly normalising for arbitrary strongly normalising X
₁
, ..., X
_n
. The analogous property holds when replacing strongly normalising by weakly normalising. As an application of the result on strong normalisation the lambda-terms whose interpretation is the top element (in the environment which associates the top element to all variables) of the Honsell-Lenisa model turn out to be exactly the lambda-terms which, applied to an arbitrary number of strongly normalising lambda-terms, always produces strongly normalising lambda-terms. This proof uses a finitary logical description of the model by means of intersection types. This answers an open question stated by Dezani, Honsell and Motohama