This paper presents a novel semantics for a quantum programming language by
operator algebras, which are known to give a formulation for quantum theory
that is alternative to the one by Hilbert spaces. We show that the opposite
category of the category of W*-algebras and normal completely positive
subunital maps is an elementary quantum flow chart category in the sense of
Selinger. As a consequence, it gives a denotational semantics for Selinger's
first-order functional quantum programming language QPL. The use of operator
algebras allows us to accommodate infinite structures and to handle classical
and quantum computations in a unified way.Comment: In Proceedings QPL 2014, arXiv:1412.810
