Physical Traces: Quantum vs. Classical Information Processing

Abstract: Within the Geometry of Interaction (GoI) paradigm, we present a setting that enables qualitative differences between classical and quantum processes to be explored. The key construction is the physical interpretation/realization of the traced monoidal categories of finite-dimensional vector spaces with tensor product as monoidal structure and of finite sets and relations with Cartesian product as monoidal structure, both of them providing a so-called wave-style GoI. The developments in this paper reveal that envisioning state update due to quantum measurement as a process provides a powerful tool for developing high-level approaches to quantum information processing.