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One Rig to Control Them All

  • Chris Heunen*
  • , Robin Kaarsgaard
  • , Louis Lemonnier
  • *Corresponding author for this work
  • The University of Edinburgh

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

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Abstract

Controlled commands - computations whose execution depends on a separate input - play a central role in reversible Boolean circuits and quantum circuits. However, existing formalisms typically treat control only implicitly, entangled with other aspects of computation. From a semantic perspective, control is most naturally expressed in semisimple rig categories, which - unlike standard circuit models such as props - support both parallel and conditional composition. We present a construction that freely adjoins an explicit syntactic notion of control to a circuit theory specified as a suitable prop, subject to eight universally quantified equations. Our main result is that these equations are sound and complete for the intended semantics of control: the resulting theory satisfies a universal property, identifying it exactly as the circuit subtheory of the free semisimple rig completion. The proof combines coherence for rig categories with a new method based on induction over Gray codes. We illustrate the usefulness of the framework by showing that it simplifies several existing sound and complete axiomatisations of quantum circuits, isolating a small and conceptually clean set of generators and equations. In addition, the same equations yield a sound and complete axiomatisation of the multiply controlled Toffoli gate set, that is universal for reversible Boolean circuits.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication41st Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2026
EditorsFaggian Claudia, Katoen Joost-Pieter, Katoen Joost-Pieter
Number of pages24
PublisherSchloss Dagstuhl- Leibniz-Zentrum fur Informatik GmbH, Dagstuhl Publishing
Publication date29. Jul 2026
Article number56
ISBN (Electronic)9783959774345
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29. Jul 2026
Event41st Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2026 - Lisbon, Portugal
Duration: 20. Jul 2026 → 23. Jul 2026

Conference

Conference41st Annual Symposium on Logic in Computer Science, LICS 2026
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityLisbon
Period20/07/2026 → 23/07/2026
SeriesLeibniz International Proceedings in Informatics, LIPIcs
Volume380
ISSN1868-8969

Keywords

  • complete equational theories
  • Quantum control
  • rig categories

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