Sums play a prominent role in the formalisms of quantum mechanics, be it for mixing and superposing states, or for composing state spaces. Surprisingly, a conceptual analysis of quantum measurement seems to suggest that quantum mechanics can be done without direct sums, expressed entirely in terms of the tensor product. The corresponding axioms define classical spaces as objects that allow copying and deleting data. Indeed, the information exchange between the quantum and the classical worlds is essentially determined by their distinct capabilities to copy and delete data. The sums turn out to be an implicit implementation of this capabilities. Realizing it through explicit axioms not only dispenses with the unnecessary structural baggage, but also allows a simple and intuitive graphical calculus. In category-theoretic terms, classical data types are †-compact Frobenius algebras, and quantum spectra underlying quantum measurements are Eilenberg-Moore coalgebras induced by these Frobenius algebras. An earlier version of this paper has been in circulation since November 2005 with the somewhat different title Quantum measurements as coalgebras. 1 1

We define a strongly normalising proof-net calculus corresponding to the logic of strongly compact closed categories with biproducts. The calculus is a full and faithful representation of the free strongly compact closed category with biproducts on a given category with an involution. This syntax can be used to represent and reason about quantum processes.

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We introduce an abstract notion of POVM within the categorical quantum mechanical semantics in terms of

... in the light of the results in [Abramsky and Coecke LiCS‘04]. The key fact is that the notion of a strongly compact closed category allows abstract notions of adjoint, bipartite projector and inner product to be defined, and their key properties to be proved. In this paper we improve on the definition of strong compact closure as compared to the one presented in [Abramsky and Coecke LiCS‘04]. This modification enables an elegant characterization of strong compact closure in terms of adjoints and a Yanking axiom, and a better treatment of bipartite projectors.

Abstract. We axiomatically define (pre-)Hilbert categories. The axioms resemble those for monoidal Abelian categories with the addition of an involutive functor. We then prove embedding theorems: any locally small pre-Hilbert category whose monoidal unit is a simple generator embeds (weakly) monoidally into the category of pre-Hilbert spaces and adjointable maps, preserving adjoint morphisms and all finite (co)limits. An intermediate result that is important in its own right is that the scalars in such a category

Our aim in this paper is to trace some of the surprising and beautiful connections which are beginning to emerge between a number of apparently disparate topics.

Girard’s Geometry of Interaction (GoI) is a program that aims at giving mathematical models of algorithms independently of any extant languages or computing models, thus making it possible to prove general theorems about algorithms. In the context of proof theory, where one views algorithms as proofs and computation as cut-elimination, this program translates to providing a mathematical modelling of the dynamics of cut-elimination. The kind of logics we deal with, such as Girard’s linear logic, are resource sensitive and have their proof-theory intimately related to various monoidal (tensor) categories. The GoI interpretation of dynamics aims to develop an algebraic/geometric theory of invariants for information flow in networks of proofs.

Category theory is a very general formalism, but there is a certain special way that physicists use categories which turns out to have close analogues in topology, logic and computation. A category has objects and morphisms, which represent things and ways to go between things. In physics, the objects are often physical systems, and the morphisms are processes turning a state of one physical system into a state of another system — perhaps

Summary. Monoidal dagger categories play a central role in the abstract quantum mechanics of Abramsky and Coecke. The authors show that a great deal of elementary quantum mechanics can be carried out in these categories; for example, the Born rule emerges naturally. In this paper, we construct a category of tame formal distributions with coefficients in a commutative associative algebra and show that it is a dagger category. This gives access to a broad new class of models, with the abstract scalars in the sense of Abramsky being the elements of the algebra. We will also consider a subcategory of local formal distributions, based on the ideas of Kac. Locality has been of fundamental significance in various formulations of quantum field theory. Thus our work may provide the possibility of extending the abstract framework to QFT. We also show that these categories of formal distributions are monoidal and contain a nuclear ideal, a weak form of adjunction appropriate for analyzing categories