Quantum Operads

Abstract

The most standard description of symmetries of a mathematical structure produces a group. However, when the definition of this structure is motivated by physics, or information theory, etc., the respective symmetry objects might become more sophisticated: quasigroups, loops, quantum groups, ... In this paper, we introduce and study quantum symmetries of very general categorical structures: operads. Its initial motivation were spaces of probability distributions on finite sets. We also investigate here how structures of quantum information, such as quantum states and some constructions of quantum codes are algebras over operads.