No Arabic abstract
We present a universal construction that relates reversible dynamics on open systems to arbitrary dynamics on closed systems: the restriction affine completion of a monoidal restriction category quotiented by well-pointedness. This categorical completion encompasses both quantum channels, via Stinespring dilation, and classical computing, via Bennetts method. Moreover, in these two cases, we show how our construction can be essentially undone by a further universal construction. This shows how both mixed quantum theory and classical computation rest on entirely reversible foundations.
The motivation for this thesis was to recast quantum self-testing [MY98,MY04] in operational terms. The result is a category-theoretic framework for discussing the following general question: How do different implementations of the same input-output process compare to each other? In the proposed framework, an input-output process is modelled by a causally structured channel in some fixed theory, and its implementations are modelled by causally structured dilations formalising hidden side-computations. These dilations compare through a pre-order formalising relative strength of side-computations. Chapter 1 reviews a mathematical model for physical theories as semicartesian symmetric monoidal categories. Many concrete examples are discussed, in particular quantum and classical information theory. The key feature is that the model facilitates the notion of dilations. Chapter 2 is devoted to the study of dilations. It introduces a handful of simple yet potent axioms about dilations, one of which (resembling the Purification Postulate [CDP10]) entails a duality theorem encompassing a large number of classic no-go results for quantum theory. Chapter 3 considers metric structure on physical theories, introducing in particular a new metric for quantum channels, the purified diamond distance, which generalises the purified distance [TCR10,Tom12] and relates to the Bures distance [KSW08a]. Chapter 4 presents a category-theoretic formalism for causality in terms of (constructible) causal channels and contractions. It simplifies aspects of the formalisms [CDP09,KU17] and relates to traces in monoidal categories [JSV96]. The formalism allows for the definition of causal dilations and the establishment of a non-trivial theory of such dilations. Chapter 5 realises quantum self-testing from the perspective of chapter 4, thus pointing towards the first known operational foundation for self-testing.
We argue that notions in quantum theory should have universal properties in the sense of category theory. We consider the completely positive trace preserving (CPTP) maps, the basic notion of quantum channel. Physically, quantum channels are derived from pure quantum theory by allowing discarding. We phrase this in category theoretic terms by showing that the category of CPTP maps is the universal monoidal category with a terminal unit that has a functor from the category of isometries. In other words, the CPTP maps are the affine reflection of the isometries.
This chapter contains an exposition of the sheaf-theoretic framework for contextuality emphasising resource-theoretic aspects, as well as some original results on this topic. In particular, we consider functions that transform empirical models on a scenario S to empirical models on another scenario T, and characterise those that are induced by classical procedures between S and T corresponding to free operations in the (non-adaptive) resource theory of contextuality. We proceed by expressing such functions as empirical models themselves, on a new scenario built from S and T. Our characterisation then boils down to the non-contextuality of these models. We also show that this construction on scenarios provides a closed structure in the category of measurement scenarios.
The ability to control quantum systems using shaped fields as well as to infer the states of such controlled systems from measurement data are key tasks in the design and operation of quantum devices. Here we associate the success of performing both tasks to the structure of the underlying control landscape. We relate the ability to control and reconstruct the full state of the system to the absence of singular controls, and show that for sufficiently long evolution times singular controls rarely occur. Based on these findings, we describe a learning algorithm for finding optimal controls that makes use of measurement data obtained from partially accessing the system. Open challenges stemming from the concentration of measure phenomenon in high dimensional systems are discussed.
We implement in the formal language of homotopy type theory a new set of axioms called cohesion. Then we indicate how the resulting cohesive homotopy type theory naturally serves as a formal foundation for central concepts in quantum gauge field theory. This is a brief survey of work by the authors developed in detail elsewhere.