7 research outputs found
Bicategorical Semantics for Nondeterministic Computation
We outline a bicategorical syntax for the interaction between public and
private information in classical information theory. We use this to give
high-level graphical definitions of encrypted communication and secret sharing
protocols, including a characterization of their security properties.
Remarkably, this makes it clear that the protocols have an identical abstract
form to the quantum teleportation and dense coding procedures, yielding
evidence of a deep connection between classical and quantum information
processing. We also formulate public-key cryptography using our scheme.
Specific implementations of these protocols as nondeterministic classical
procedures are recovered by applying our formalism in a symmetric monoidal
bicategory of matrices of relations.Comment: 21 page
Categories of relations as models of quantum theory
Categories of relations over a regular category form a family of models of
quantum theory. Using regular logic, many properties of relations over sets
lift to these models, including the correspondence between Frobenius structures
and internal groupoids. Over compact Hausdorff spaces, this lifting gives
continuous symmetric encryption. Over a regular Mal'cev category, this
correspondence gives a characterization of categories of completely positive
maps, enabling the formulation of quantum features. These models are closer to
Hilbert spaces than relations over sets in several respects: Heisenberg
uncertainty, impossibility of broadcasting, and behavedness of rank one
morphisms.Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2015, arXiv:1511.0118
Categorical composable cryptography: extended version
We formalize the simulation paradigm of cryptography in terms of category
theory and show that protocols secure against abstract attacks form a symmetric
monoidal category, thus giving an abstract model of composable security
definitions in cryptography. Our model is able to incorporate computational
security, set-up assumptions and various attack models such as colluding or
independently acting subsets of adversaries in a modular, flexible fashion. We
conclude by using string diagrams to rederive the security of the one-time pad,
correctness of Diffie-Hellman key exchange and no-go results concerning the
limits of bipartite and tripartite cryptography, ruling out e.g., composable
commitments and broadcasting. On the way, we exhibit two categorical
constructions of resource theories that might be of independent interest: one
capturing resources shared among multiple parties and one capturing resource
conversions that succeed asymptotically
The algebra of entanglement and the geometry of composition
String diagrams turn algebraic equations into topological moves that have
recurring shapes, involving the sliding of one diagram past another. We
individuate, at the root of this fact, the dual nature of polygraphs as
presentations of higher algebraic theories, and as combinatorial descriptions
of "directed spaces". Operations of polygraphs modelled on operations of
topological spaces are used as the foundation of a compositional universal
algebra, where sliding moves arise from tensor products of polygraphs. We
reconstruct several higher algebraic theories in this framework.
In this regard, the standard formalism of polygraphs has some technical
problems. We propose a notion of regular polygraph, barring cell boundaries
that are not homeomorphic to a disk of the appropriate dimension. We define a
category of non-degenerate shapes, and show how to calculate their tensor
products. Then, we introduce a notion of weak unit to recover weakly degenerate
boundaries in low dimensions, and prove that the existence of weak units is
equivalent to a representability property.
We then turn to applications of diagrammatic algebra to quantum theory. We
re-evaluate the category of Hilbert spaces from the perspective of categorical
universal algebra, which leads to a bicategorical refinement. Then, we focus on
the axiomatics of fragments of quantum theory, and present the ZW calculus, the
first complete diagrammatic axiomatisation of the theory of qubits.
The ZW calculus has several advantages over ZX calculi, including a
computationally meaningful normal form, and a fragment whose diagrams can be
read as setups of fermionic oscillators. Moreover, its generators reflect an
operational classification of entangled states of 3 qubits. We conclude with
generalisations of the ZW calculus to higher-dimensional systems, including the
definition of a universal set of generators in each dimension.Comment: v2: changes to end of Chapter 3. v1: 214 pages, many figures;
University of Oxford doctoral thesi
Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures
This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computational Structures, FOSSACS 2022, which was held during April 4-6, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 23 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 77 submissions. They deal with research on theories and methods to support the analysis, integration, synthesis, transformation, and verification of programs and software systems
Foundations of Software Science and Computation Structures
This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Foundations of Software Science and Computational Structures, FOSSACS 2022, which was held during April 4-6, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 23 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 77 submissions. They deal with research on theories and methods to support the analysis, integration, synthesis, transformation, and verification of programs and software systems