English

Graded String Diagrams for Imprecise Probability and Causal Intervention

Category Theory 2026-01-12 v4 Logic in Computer Science

Abstract

We introduce string diagrams for graded symmetric monoidal categories. Our approach includes a definition of graded monoidal theory and the corresponding freely generated syntactic category. Also, we show how an axiomatic presentation for the graded theory may be modularly obtained from one for the grading theory and one for the base category. The Para construction on monoidal actegories is a motivating example for our framework. As a case study, we show how to axiomatise a variant of the graded category ImP, recently introduced by Liell-Cock and Staton to model imprecise probability. This culminates in a representation, as string diagrams with grading wires, of programs with primitives for nondeterministic and probabilistic choices and conditioning.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2501.18404,
  title  = {Graded String Diagrams for Imprecise Probability and Causal Intervention},
  author = {Ralph Sarkis and Fabio Zanasi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.18404},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Definitions and results generalised to multicoloured props and new Section 7 added

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:25:44.170Z