Return to search

Logical aspects of quantum computation

A fundamental component of theoretical computer science is the application of logic. Logic provides the formalisms by which we can model and reason about computational questions, and novel computational features provide new directions for the development of logic. From this perspective, the unusual features of quantum computation present both challenges and opportunities for computer science. Our existing logical techniques must be extended and adapted to appropriately model quantum phenomena, stimulating many new theoretical developments. At the same time, tools developed with quantum applications in mind often prove effective in other areas of logic and computer science. In this thesis we explore logical aspects of this fruitful source of ideas, with category theory as our unifying framework. Inspired by the success of diagrammatic techniques in quantum foundations, we begin by demonstrating the effectiveness of string diagrams for practical calculations in category theory. We proceed by example, developing graphical formulations of the definitions and proofs of many topics in elementary category theory, such as adjunctions, monads, distributive laws, representable functors and limits and colimits. We contend that these tools are particularly suitable for calculations in the field of coalgebra, and continue to demonstrate the use of string diagrams in the remainder of the thesis. Our coalgebraic studies commence in chapter 3, in which we present an elementary formulation of a representation result for the unitary transformations, following work developed in a fibrational setting in [Abramsky, 2010]. That paper raises the question of what a suitable "fibred coalgebraic logic" would be. This question is the starting point for our work in chapter 5, in which we introduce a parameterized, duality based frame- work for coalgebraic logic. We show sufficient conditions under which dual adjunctions and equivalences can be lifted to fibrations of (co)algebras. We also prove that the semantics of these logics satisfy certain "institution conditions" providing harmony between syntactic and semantic transformations. We conclude by studying the impact of parameterization on another logical aspect of coalgebras, in which certain fibrations of predicates can be seen as generalized invariants. Our focus is on the lifting of coalgebra structure along a fibration from the base category to an associated total category of predicates. We show that given a suitable parameterized generalization of the usual liftings of signature functors, this induces a "fibration of fibrations" capturing the relationship between the two different axes of variation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:667029
Date January 2015
CreatorsMarsden, Daniel
ContributorsAbramsky, Samson; Doering, Andreas
PublisherUniversity of Oxford
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e99331a3-9d93-4381-8075-ad843fb9b77c

Page generated in 0.0792 seconds