!-Graphs with Trivial Overlap are Context-Free

String diagrams are a powerful tool for reasoning about composite structures in symmetric monoidal categories. By representing string diagrams as graphs, equational reasoning can be done automatically by double-pushout rewriting. !-graphs give us the means of expressing and proving properties about whole families of these graphs simultaneously. While !-graphs provide elegant proofs of surprisingly powerful theorems, little is known about the formal properties of the graph languages they define. This paper takes the first step in characterising these languages by showing that an important subclass of !-graphs--those whose repeated structures only overlap trivially--can be encoded using a (context-free) vertex replacement grammar.Comment: In Proceedings GaM 2015, arXiv:1504.0244

Computational Adequacy for Substructural Lambda Calculi

Substructural type systems, such as affine (and linear) type systems, are type systems which impose restrictions on copying (and discarding) of variables, and they have found many applications in computer science, including quantum programming. We describe one linear and one affine type systems and we formulate abstract categorical models for both of them which are sound and computationally adequate. We also show, under basic assumptions, that interpreting lambda abstractions via a monoidal closed structure (a popular method for linear type systems) necessarily leads to degenerate and inadequate models for call-by-value affine type systems with recursion. In our categorical treatment, a solution to this problem is clearly presented. Our categorical models are more general than linear/non-linear models used to study linear logic and we present a homogeneous categorical account of both linear and affine type systems in a call-by-value setting. We also give examples with many concrete models, including classical and quantum ones.Comment: In Proceedings ACT 2020, arXiv:2101.0788

The ZX-calculus is incomplete for quantum mechanics

We prove that the ZX-calculus is incomplete for quantum mechanics. We suggest the addition of a new 'color-swap' rule, of which currently no analytical formulation is known and which we suspect may be necessary, but not sufficient to make the ZX-calculus complete.Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2014, arXiv:1412.810

Central Submonads and Notions of Computation

The notion of "centre" has been introduced for many algebraic structures in mathematics. A notable example is the centre of a monoid which always determines a commutative submonoid. Monads in category theory are important algebraic structures that may be used to model computational effects in programming languages and in this paper we show how the notion of centre may be extended to strong monads acting on symmetric monoidal categories. We show that the centre of a strong monad $\mathcal T$, if it exists, determines a commutative submonad $\mathcal Z$ of $\mathcal T$, such that the Kleisli category of $\mathcal Z$ is isomorphic to the premonoidal centre (in the sense of Power and Robinson) of the Kleisli category of $\mathcal T$. We provide three equivalent conditions which characterise the existence of the centre of $\mathcal T$ and we show that every strong monad on many well-known naturally occurring categories does admit a centre, thereby showing that this new notion is ubiquitous. We also provide a computational interpretation of our ideas which consists in giving a refinement of Moggi's monadic metalanguage. The added benefit is that this allows us to immediately establish a large class of contextually equivalent programs for computational effects that are described via monads that admit a non-trivial centre by simply considering the richer syntactic structure provided by the refinement.Comment: 25 pages + 8 pages references and appendi

Quantum Programming with Inductive Datatypes: Causality and Affine Type Theory

Inductive datatypes in programming languages allow users to define useful data structures such as natural numbers, lists, trees, and others. In this paper we show how inductive datatypes may be added to the quantum programming language QPL. We construct a sound categorical model for the language and by doing so we provide the first detailed semantic treatment of user-defined inductive datatypes in quantum programming. We also show our denotational interpretation is invariant with respect to big-step reduction, thereby establishing another novel result for quantum programming. Compared to classical programming, this property is considerably more difficult to prove and we demonstrate its usefulness by showing how it immediately implies computational adequacy at all types. To further cement our results, our semantics is entirely based on a physically natural model of von Neumann algebras, which are mathematical structures used by physicists to study quantum mechanics

Semantics for a Lambda Calculus for String Diagrams

To appear in a special issue in the series "Outstanding Contributions to Logic" dedicated to Samson Abramsky.Linear/non-linear (LNL) models, as described by Benton, soundly model a LNL term calculus and LNL logic closely related to intuitionistic linear logic. Every such model induces a canonical enrichment that we show soundly models a LNL lambda calculus for string diagrams, introduced by Rios and Selinger (with primary application in quantum computing). Our abstract treatment of this language leads to simpler concrete models compared to those presented so far. We also extend the language with general recursion and prove soundness. Finally, we present an adequacy result for the diagram-free fragment of the language which corresponds to a modified version of Benton and Wadler's adjoint calculus with recursion. In keeping with the purpose of the special issue, we also describe the influence of Samson Abramsky's research on these results, and on the overall project of which this is a part

Quantum Programming with Inductive Datatypes

Inductive datatypes in programming languages allow users to define useful data structures such as natural numbers, lists, trees, and others. In this paper we show how inductive datatypes may be added to the quantum programming language QPL. We construct a sound categorical model for the language and by doing so we provide the first detailed semantic treatment of user-defined inductive datatypes in quantum programming. We also show our denotational interpretation is invariant with respect to big-step reduction, thereby establishing another novel result for quantum programming. Compared to classical programming, this property is considerably more difficult to prove and we demonstrate its usefulness by showing how it immediately implies computational adequacy at all types. To further cement our results, our semantics is entirely based on a physically natural model of von Neumann algebras, which are mathematical structures used by physicists to study quantum mechanics

Quantum Expectation Transformers for Cost Analysis

International audienceWe introduce a new kind of expectation transformer for a mixed classical-quantum programming language. Our semantic approach relies on a new notion of a cost structure, which we introduce and which can be seen as a specialisation of the Kegelspitzen of Keimel and Plotkin. We show that our weakest precondition analysis is both sound and adequate with respect to the operational semantics of the language. Using the induced expectation transformer, we provide formal analysis methods for the expected cost analysis and expected value analysis of classical-quantum programs. We illustrate the usefulness of our techniques by computing the expected cost of several well-known quantum algorithms and protocols, such as coin tossing, repeat until success, entangled state preparation, and quantum walks