Universal Constructions for (Co)Relations: categories, monoidal categories, and props

Calculi of string diagrams are increasingly used to present the syntax and algebraic structure of various families of circuits, including signal flow graphs, electrical circuits and quantum processes. In many such approaches, the semantic interpretation for diagrams is given in terms of relations or...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Logical Methods in Computer Science
Main Authors: Brendan Fong, Fabio Zanasi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Logical Methods in Computer Science e.V. 2018-09-01
Subjects:
Online Access:https://lmcs.episciences.org/4763/pdf
Description
Summary:Calculi of string diagrams are increasingly used to present the syntax and algebraic structure of various families of circuits, including signal flow graphs, electrical circuits and quantum processes. In many such approaches, the semantic interpretation for diagrams is given in terms of relations or corelations (generalised equivalence relations) of some kind. In this paper we show how semantic categories of both relations and corelations can be characterised as colimits of simpler categories. This modular perspective is important as it simplifies the task of giving a complete axiomatisation for semantic equivalence of string diagrams. Moreover, our general result unifies various theorems that are independently found in literature and are relevant for program semantics, quantum computation and control theory.
ISSN:1860-5974