physics, mathematical physics, philosophy of physics
theory (physics), model (physics)
experiment, measurement, computable physics
Axiomatizations
Tools
Structural phenomena
Types of quantum field thories
With braiding
With duals for objects
category with duals (list of them)
dualizable object (what they have)
ribbon category, a.k.a. tortile category
With duals for morphisms
monoidal dagger-category?
With traces
Closed structure
Special sorts of products
Semisimplicity
Morphisms
Internal monoids
Examples
Theorems
In higher category theory
under construction
Central aspects of quantum mechanics with finite-dimensional spaces of quantum states — such as tensor products of qbit states of relevance in quantum information theory and quantum computation — follow from the formal properties of the category FinHilb of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. These properties are axiomatized by saying that FinHilb is an example of a †-compact category.
Conversely, much of finite-dimensional quantum mechanics and quantum computation can be formulated in any †-compact category, and general reasoning about †-compact categories themselves yields results about quantum mechanics and quantum computation.
A transparent string diagram calculus in †-compact categories as exposed in (Coecke, Kindergarten quantum mechanics) provides an intuitive and powerful tool for reasoning in -compact categories.
Let be a †-compact category.
We list various concepts in quantum mechanics and their corresponding incarnation in terms of structures in .
An observable in quantum mechanics formulated on a Hilbert space is modeled by a self-adjoint operator, and the classical measurement outcomes of this operator provide, at least under some assumptions, an orthogonal basis on the Hilbert space.
That, more abstractly, the notion of orthogonal basis of an object can be phrased intrinsically inside any suitable -compact category is the point made in (CoeckePavlovicVicary).
The underlying “algebra of quantum amplitudes” of the corresponding quantum mechanical system is the endomorphism monoid of the tensor unit
In (Vicary) it is shown that in -compact categories with all finite limits over certain “tree-like” diagrams compatible with the -structure, this has the properties that
If furthermore every bounded sequence of measurements in with values in has a least upper bound, then it follows that this field coincides with the complex numbers
and moreover
The behaviour of quantum channels and completely positive maps has an elegant categorical description in terms of -compact categories. See (Selinger and Coecke).
Symmetric monoidal categories such as †-compact categories have as internal logic a fragment of linear logic and as type theory a flavor of linear type theory. In this fashion everything that can be formally said about quantum mechanics in terms of †-compact categories has an equivalent expression in formal logic/type theory. It has been argued (Abramsky-Duncan 05, Duncan 06) that this linear logic/linear type theory of quantum mechanics is the correct formalization of “quantum logic”. An exposition of this point of view is in (Baez-Stay 09).
The observation that a natural language for quantum information theory and quantum computation, specifically for quantum circuit diagrams, is that of string diagrams in †-compact categories (see quantum information theory via dagger-compact categories):
Samson Abramsky, Bob Coecke, A categorical semantics of quantum protocols, Proceedings of the 19th IEEE conference on Logic in Computer Science (LiCS’04). IEEE Computer Science Press (2004) arXiv:quant-ph/0402130, doi:10.1109/LICS.2004.1319636
Samson Abramsky, Bob Coecke, Categorical quantum mechanics, in Handbook of Quantum Logic and Quantum Structures, Elsevier (2008) arXiv:0808.1023, ISBN:9780080931661, doi:10.1109/LICS.2004.1319636
On the relation to quantum logic/linear logic:
Samson Abramsky, Ross Duncan, A Categorical Quantum Logic, Mathematical Structures in Computer Science 16 3 (2006) arXiv:quant-ph/0512114, doi:10.1017/S0960129506005275
Ross Duncan, Types for quantum mechanics, 2006 pdf, slides
Early exposition with introduction to monoidal category theory:
Bob Coecke, Kindergarten quantum mechanics arXiv:quant-ph/0510032
Bob Coecke, Introducing categories to the practicing physicist arXiv:0808.1032
John Baez, Mike Stay, Physics, topology, logic and computation: a rosetta stone in: New Structures for Physics, Bob Coecke (ed.), Lecture Notes in Physics 813, Springer (2011) 95-174 arxiv/0903.0340
Bob Coecke, Eric Oliver Paquette, Categories for the practising physicist, in: New Structures for Physics, Lecture Notes in Physics 813, Springer (2010) arXiv:0905.3010, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-12821-9_3
Bob Coecke, Quantum Picturalism arXiv:0908.1787
Review in contrast to quantum logic:
and with emphasis on quantum computation:
Generalization to quantum operations on mixed states (completely positive maps of density matrices):
Peter Selinger, Dagger compact closed categories and completely positive maps, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science 170 (2007) 139-163 doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2006.12.018, web, pdf
Bob Coecke, Chris Heunen, Pictures of complete positivity in arbitrary dimension, Information and Computation 250 50-58 (2016) arXiv:1110.3055, doi:10.1016/j.ic.2016.02.007
Bob Coecke, Chris Heunen, Aleks Kissinger,
Categories of Quantum and Classical Channels, EPTCS 158 (2014) 1-14 arXiv:1408.0049, doi:10.4204/EPTCS.158.1
Formalization of quantum measurement via Frobenius algebra-structures:
Bob Coecke, Duško Pavlović, Quantum measurements without sums, in Louis Kauffman, Samuel Lomonaco (eds.), Mathematics of Quantum Computation and Quantum Technology, Taylor & Francis (2008) 559-596 arXiv:quant-ph/0608035, doi:10.1201/9781584889007
Bob Coecke, Duško Pavlović, Jamie Vicary, A new description of orthogonal bases, Mathematical Structures in Computer Science 23 3 (2012) 555- 567 arXiv:0810.0812, doi:10.1017/S0960129512000047
Textbook accounts (with background on relevant monoidal category theory):
Bob Coecke, Aleks Kissinger, Picturing Quantum Processes – A First Course in Quantum Theory and Diagrammatic Reasoning, Cambridge University Press (2017) ISBN:9781107104228
Chris Heunen, Jamie Vicary, Categories for Quantum Theory, Oxford University Press 2019 ISBN:9780198739616
based on:
Chris Heunen, Jamie Vicary, Lectures on categorical quantum mechanics (2012) pdf, pdf
Bob Coecke, Stefano Gogioso, Quantum in Pictures, Quantinuum Publications (2023) ISBN 978-1739214715, Quantinuum blog
(focus on ZX-calculus)
Refinement to the ZX-calculus for specific control of quantum circuit-diagrams:
Relating the ZX-calculus to braided fusion categories for anyon braiding:
The role of complex numbers in general -compact categories:
Last revised on April 8, 2023 at 07:16:34. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.