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Related papers: A categorical semantics for causal structure

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The landscape of causal relations that can hold among a set of systems in quantum theory is richer than in classical physics. In particular, a pair of time-ordered systems can be related as cause and effect or as the effects of a common…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2017-07-20 Katja Ried , Jean-Philippe W. MacLean , Robert W. Spekkens , Kevin J. Resch

Computational models typically assume that operations are applied in a fixed sequential order. In recent years several works have looked at relaxing this assumption, considering computations without any fixed causal structure and showing…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-08-21 Alastair A. Abbott , Mehdi Mhalla , Pierre Pocreau

One way to study the physical plausibility of closed timelike curves (CTCs) is to examine their computational power. This has been done for Deutschian CTCs (D-CTCs) and post-selection CTCs (P-CTCs), with the result that they allow for the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-03-07 Mateus Araújo , Philippe Allard Guérin , Ämin Baumeler

It was recently realised that quantum theory allows for so-called causally nonseparable processes, which are incompatible with any definite causal order. This was first suggested on a rather abstract level by the formalism of process…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-05-20 Cyril Branciard

Quantum mechanics allows operations to be in indefinite causal order. Recently there have been active discussions on enhanced communication strategies through exotic causal structures. In light of this, through the process matrix formalism,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-04-21 Kaumudibikash Goswami , Fabio Costa

Born in the intersection between quantum mechanics and general relativity, indefinite causal structure is the idea that in the continuum of time, some sets of events do not have an inherent causal order between them. Process matrices,…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-10-08 Omri Shmueli

We review some of our recent results (with collaborators) on information processing in an ordered linear spaces framework for probabilistic theories. These include demonstrations that many "inherently quantum" phenomena are in reality quite…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-08-18 Howard Barnum , Alexander Wilce

More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a paradigmatic case…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2013-06-14 Christian Wuthrich

The standard formulation of quantum theory assumes a predefined notion of time. This is a major obstacle in the search for a quantum theory of gravity, where the causal structure of space-time is expected to be dynamical and fundamentally…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-07-29 Ognyan Oreshkov , Nicolas J. Cerf

Quantum supermaps provide a framework in which higher order quantum processes can act on lower order quantum processes. In doing so, they enable the definition and analysis of new quantum protocols and causal structures. Recently, key…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2021-09-16 Matt Wilson , Giulio Chiribella

One of the most fundamental open problems in physics is the unification of general relativity and quantum theory to a theory of quantum gravity. An aspect that might become relevant in such a theory is that the dynamical nature of causal…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-03-14 Veronika Baumann , Marius Krumm , Philippe Allard Guérin , Časlav Brukner

We give an up-to-date perspective with a general overview of the theory of causal properties, the derived causal structures, their classification and applications, and the definition and construction of causal boundaries and of causal…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2016-08-16 Alfonso García-Parrado , José M. M. Senovilla

We present a definition of cause and effect in terms of decision-theoretic primitives and thereby provide a principled foundation for causal reasoning. Our definition departs from the traditional view of causation in that causal assertions…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2014-11-17 D. Heckerman , R. Shachter

We develop a new formalism for constructing probabilities associated to the causal ordering of events in quantum theory, where by an event we mean the emergence of a measurement record on a detector. We start with constructing probabilities…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-01-17 Charis Anastopoulos , Maria_Electra Plakitsi

Complex processes often arise from sequences of simpler interactions involving a few particles at a time. These interactions, however, may not be directly accessible to experiments. Here we develop the first efficient method for unravelling…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2022-06-24 Ge Bai , Ya-Dong Wu , Yan Zhu , Masahito Hayashi , Giulio Chiribella

Complex dynamical systems are prevalent in many scientific disciplines. In the analysis of such systems two aspects are of particular interest: 1) the temporal patterns along which they evolve and 2) the underlying causal mechanisms.…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-05-31 Nicolas-Domenic Reiter , Andreas Gerhardus , Jakob Runge

The quantum switch, the canonical example of a process with indefinite causal order, has been claimed to provide various advantages over processes with definite causal orders for some particular tasks in the field of quantum metrology. In…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-06-27 Raphaël Mothe , Cyril Branciard , Alastair A. Abbott

In quantum causality and quantum information, there is a vast landscape of abstract quantum protocols permitting cyclic or non-acyclic causal structures between operations, including frameworks for indefinite causal order and higher-order…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-05-12 Matthias Salzger , V. Vilasini

This paper presents a framework for Quantum causal modeling based on the interpretation of causality as a relation between an observer's probability assignments to hypothetical or counterfactual experiments. The framework is based on the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2020-01-15 Jacques Pienaar

Process theories combine a graphical language for compositional reasoning with an underlying categorical semantics. They have been successfully applied to fields such as quantum computation, natural language processing, linear dynamical…

Logic in Computer Science · Computer Science 2018-05-17 Dan Marsden , Fabrizio Genovese