Shaded Tangles for the Design and Verification of Quantum Programs (Extended Abstract)

Abstract

We give a scheme for interpreting shaded tangles as quantum programs, with the property that isotopic tangles yield equivalent programs. We analyze many known quantum programs in this way -- including entanglement manipulation and error correction -- and in each case present a fully-topological formal verification, yielding in several cases substantial new insight into how the program works. We also use our methods to identify several new or generalized procedures.