English

De Finetti's Theorem in Categorical Probability

Probability 2021-11-08 v3 Logic in Computer Science Category Theory Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

We present a novel proof of de Finetti's Theorem characterizing permutation-invariant probability measures of infinite sequences of variables, so-called exchangeable measures. The proof is phrased in the language of Markov categories, which provide an abstract categorical framework for probability and information flow. The diagrammatic and abstract nature of the arguments makes the proof intuitive and easy to follow. We also show how the usual measure-theoretic version of de Finetti's Theorem for standard Borel spaces is an instance of this result.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.02639,
  title  = {De Finetti's Theorem in Categorical Probability},
  author = {Tobias Fritz and Tomáš Gonda and Paolo Perrone},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.02639},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

26 pages. v3: referee's suggestions incorporated

R2 v1 2026-06-24T01:50:17.726Z