Universal Constructions for (Co)Relations: categories, monoidal categories, and props

Calculi of string diagrams are increasingly used to present the syntax and algebraic structure of various families of circuits, including signal flow graphs, electrical circuits and quantum processes. In many such approaches, the semantic interpretation for diagrams is given in terms of relations or corelations (generalised equivalence relations) of some kind. In this paper we show how semantic categories of both relations and corelations can be characterised as colimits of simpler categories. This modular perspective is important as it simplifies the task of giving a complete axiomatisation for semantic equivalence of string diagrams. Moreover, our general result unifies various theorems that are independently found in literature and are relevant for program semantics, quantum computation and control theory.Comment: 22 pages + 3 page appendix, extended version of arXiv:1703.0824

Finite subset spaces of closed surfaces

The kth finite subset space of a topological space X is the space exp_k X of non-empty finite subsets of X of size at most k, topologised as a quotient of X^k. The construction is a homotopy functor and may be regarded as a union of configuration spaces of distinct unordered points in X. We show that the finite subset spaces of a connected 2-complex admit "lexicographic cell structures" based on the lexicographic order on I^2 and use these to study the finite subset spaces of closed surfaces. We completely calculate the rational homology of the finite subset spaces of the two-sphere, and determine the top integral homology groups of exp_k Sigma for each k and closed surface Sigma. In addition, we use Mayer-Vietoris arguments and the ring structure of H^*(Sym^k Sigma) to calculate the integer cohomology groups of the third finite subset space of Sigma closed and orientable.Comment: 40 pages, 5 .eps figure