Categorical quantum mechanics (CQM) and the theory of quantum groups rely
heavily on the use of structures that have both an algebraic and co-algebraic
component, making them well-suited for manipulation using diagrammatic
techniques. Diagrams allow us to easily form complex compositions of
(co)algebraic structures, and prove their equality via graph rewriting. One of
the biggest challenges in going beyond simple rewriting-based proofs is
designing a graphical language that is expressive enough to prove interesting
properties (e.g. normal form results) about not just single diagrams, but
entire families of diagrams. One candidate is the language of !-graphs, which
consist of graphs with certain subgraphs marked with boxes (called !-boxes)
that can be repeated any number of times. New !-graph equations can then be
proved using a powerful technique called !-box induction. However, previously
this technique only applied to commutative (or cocommutative) algebraic
structures, severely limiting its applications in some parts of CQM and
(especially) quantum groups. In this paper, we fix this shortcoming by offering
a new semantics for non-commutative !-graphs using an enriched version of
Penrose's abstract tensor notation.Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2014, arXiv:1412.810