Higher semantics of quantum protocols

Conference item

We propose a higher semantics for the description of quantum protocols, which deals with quantum and classical information in a unified way. Central to our approach is the modelling of classical data by information transfer to the environment, and the use of 2-category theory to formalize the resulting framework. This 2-categorical semantics has a graphical calculus, the diagrams of which correspond exactly to physically-implementable quantum procedures. Quantum teleportation in its most general sense is reformulated as the ability to remove correlations between a quantum system and its environment, and is represented by an elegant graphical identity. We use this new formalism to describe two new families of quantum protocols. Index Terms—quantum computing, category theory, higher categories

Authors: Vicary, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Host title: 2012 27th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science
• Journal: 2012 27th Annual IEEE Symposium on Logic in Computer Science
• Pages: 606–615
• Publication date: 2012-08-23
• Event location: Dubrovnik
• DOI: 10.1109/LICS.2012.70
• ISSN: 1043-6871
• Keywords: SBTMR