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arXiv:2606.29804

Infrared Safety from ZX-Diagrams: A Categorical Proof of Soft-QED as Open Quantum System

Soo-Jong Rey

quant-phcs.LOhep-thmath-phSubmitted Jun 29, 2026• Announced Jun 30, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

The discard ZX-calculus, a diagrammatic language for mixed-state quantum mechanics, is used to give a nonperturbative, categorical proof of the Bloch-Nordsieck cancellation of infrared divergences in QED. Soft photons are treated as an open quantum system: the resolved charged particles and hard photons form the system, while photons below a detector resolution form the environment. The reduced hard channel is a completely positive trace-preserving (CPTP) map, and the soft-photon theorem replaces the full S-matrix by a controlled displacement operator whose Feynman-Vernon influence functional satisfies the equal-history normalization ${\cal F}[J,J]=1 $. In the ZX-calculus, this normalization is a single diagrammatic identity: the doubled displacement diagram collapses to the bare wire under the unitarity, cyclicity, and discard rules. The proof therefore serves as a categorical consistency check on the open-system treatment of soft QED given in a companion paper; it confirms that the physical derivation is logically complete and free of hidden assumptions about the infrared limit. For off-diagonal hard-state elements, the same diagram yields the coherent-state overlap, giving a first-principles account of soft-cloud decoherence. The soft-shell coarse graining is then constructed as a CPTP Schur channel whose infinitesimal limit produces the exact Lindblad generator with jump operators determined by the eikonal emission amplitudes. Finally, a local CPTP-certification pipeline is developed for non-Markovian process tensors, enabling constant-time verification of trace preservation in open quantum simulations. The framework bridges categorical quantum semantics, non-equilibrium field theory, and practical open-system compilation.

Comments
15 pages, 8 figures

Related papers

Soft QED as Open Quantum System: Infrared Cancellation and Soft-Shell Coarse Graining

Soo-Jong Rey

I formulate unresolved soft-photon sector of QED as open quantum system. Resolved charged particles and hard photons form the system, unresolved soft photons form the environment, and basic object is the reduced density matrix. A resolved outcome $f$ of multiple hard particles and photons has probability $P_{f}(i) =\sum_n|\langle f,n|S|i,0\rangle|^2=\langle i|F_f|i\rangle$, with Kraus operators $K_n= {}_{\rm soft} \langle n|S|0 \rangle_{\rm soft}$ and effect $F_f=\sum_nK_n^\daggerΠ_fK_n$. The SK formulation places unresolved virtual and real terms in one doubled-contour expansion. At one loop they carry the same on-shell eikonal kernel with opposite signs. This elegantly organizes the QED probability: for the same observable, perturbative order, diagrams, and phase space, the OQS gives the same infrared-finite terms as the full-QED. The soft-photon evolution is a unitary coherent-state displacement driven by the scattering current. The equal-history identity of influence functional exactly normalizes this soft evolution; together with the soft-photon theorem it removes the IR divergent leading-soft factor from inclusive probability. I also derive explicit leading-soft QED realization of scale-parametrized Lindblad evolution on a fixed hard-branch space. Tracing an infinitesimal soft-photon shell produces diagonal jump operators whose entries are fixed by the corresponding eikonal emission amplitudes. The finite-shell map is a completely positive unital Schur channel and, in the sharp scale-invariant leading-soft regime, a dephasing semigroup of a completely-positive-divisible scale flow. The resulting logarithmic visibility slope and monotonic purity loss are off-diagonal predictions of the reduced-state description. The same controlled-displacement dilation gives the Sudakov probability, Poisson soft-photon multiplicities, and the bremsstrahlung number spectrum.

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The Delayed Stabilizer ZX-Calculus

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Many stabilizer quantum error-correcting codes are built from a finite pattern repeated across space or time, such as lattice codes, translation-invariant graph states, and quantum convolutional codes. Ordinary stabilizer ZX-diagrams capture only finite truncations of such systems, obscuring the repeated structure that defines them. We introduce the delayed stabilizer ZX-calculus, a finite graphical language for these infinite, translation-invariant processes. It extends the odd-prime-dimensional stabilizer ZX-calculus with a single new generator, the delay, which feeds data from one time step to the next. We equip the calculus with two semantics. In the first semantics, we interpret the behaviour of a delayed ZX-diagram as an equivalence class of sequences of quantum channels; where two sequences are identified if they have the same information content. We show that the behaviour of a delayed ZX-diagram uniquely determines an infinite stabilizer group. In the second semantics, we interpret the delay as a formal variable, encoding the translation-invariant families of Pauli operators as generating functions. This allows us to represent a delayed ZX-diagram in terms of a tableau of generating functions, from which the infinite stabilizer group can be recovered. Finally, we give a complete axiomatization of the delayed stabilizer ZX-calculus, featuring generalised Euler decomposition and colour change rules. Using generalised forms of local complementation and pivoting, we reduce every diagram to a unique normal form. This establishes soundness, universality, and completeness for the generating tableau semantics.

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Completeness of Graphical Languages for Mixed States Quantum Mechanics (Track B: Automata, Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming)

Titouan Carette, Emmanuel Jeandel, Simon Perdrix +1 more

There exist several graphical languages for quantum information processing, like quantum circuits, ZX-Calculus, ZW-Calculus, etc. Each of these languages forms a dagger-symmetric monoidal category (dagger-SMC) and comes with an interpretation functor to the dagger-SMC of (finite dimension) Hilbert spaces. In the recent years, one of the main achievements of the categorical approach to quantum mechanics has been to provide several equational theories for most of these graphical languages, making them complete for various fragments of pure quantum mechanics. We address the question of the extension of these languages beyond pure quantum mechanics, in order to reason on mixed states and general quantum operations, i.e. completely positive maps. Intuitively, such an extension relies on the axiomatisation of a discard map which allows one to get rid of a quantum system, operation which is not allowed in pure quantum mechanics. We introduce a new construction, the discard construction, which transforms any dagger-symmetric monoidal category into a symmetric monoidal category equipped with a discard map. Roughly speaking this construction consists in making any isometry causal. Using this construction we provide an extension for several graphical languages that we prove to be complete for general quantum operations. However this construction fails for some fringe cases like the Clifford+T quantum mechanics, as the category does not have enough isometries.

arXiv:1902.07143•Leibniz international proceedings in informatics•Jan 1, 2019•19 citations

Infrared Quantum-Environmental Engineering Using Soft Photons as Angular-Momentum Detectors

Soo-Jong Rey

Built upon infrared QED formulated as an open quantum system, I use the complementary soft photons as a quantum instrument. The experiment selects the hard-state code, resolved process, trajectory, accepted modes, and photon readout. QED fixes the interaction. On an eikonal-degenerate reducing code, the momentum-flow jump acts as a scalar. A Lindbladian displacement removes this common term from the dissipator. Its interference with the Low--Burnett--Kroll operator enters a finite Hamiltonian. The residual dissipator ${\cal J}_\lambda(\hat q)$ measures direction- and helicity-dependent projections of orbital and spin angular momentum. I isolate the same operator in a selective photon measurement by coherently nulling the branch-independent eikonal output. The nulled click effects and the logical dissipator scale as $E_d^2$. Both saturate at the lower infrared endpoint. In the semiclassical branch limit, the decoherence functional$$ \Gamma^{(1)}_{ab}(E_d)= \frac{e^2}{2}\sum_{\lambda=\pm}\int_0^{E_d} \frac{{\rm d}^3q}{(2\pi)^3 2\omega} \left|{\cal J}_{\lambda,a}(\hat q)-{\cal J}_{\lambda,b}(\hat q)\right|^2$$sets the soft-output overlap. Coherent prescribed currents exponentiate this functional. Repeated outputs give the exact sample complexity for hard-branch identification. General mixed outputs obey the quantum Chernoff bound. I also specialize privacy--correctability duality to the vacuum-plus-one-photon instrument. The resulting criterion identifies hard codes that hide their logical state from the retained soft output.I extend the instrument to orthogonal mode restrictions and zero-mean Gaussian soft states. I prove covariance under unitary mode transformations. I derive the equivalent positive noise-kernel form. The result promotes the finite two-path record to an operator-valued QED instrument. Soft radiation becomes a controlled probe of angular momentum.

•Jul 23, 2026•0 citations

Completeness of Graphical Languages for Mixed State Quantum Mechanics

Titouan Carette, Emmanuel Jeandel, Simon Perdrix +1 more

There exist several graphical languages for quantum information processing, like quantum circuits, ZX-calculus, ZW-calculus, and so on. Each of these languages forms a †-symmetric monoidal category (†-SMC) and comes with an interpretation functor to the †-SMC of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. In recent years, one of the main achievements of the categorical approach to quantum mechanics has been to provide several equational theories for most of these graphical languages, making them complete for various fragments of pure quantum mechanics. We address the question of how to extend these languages beyond pure quantum mechanics to reason about mixed states and general quantum operations, i.e., completely positive maps. Intuitively, such an extension relies on the axiomatisation of a discard map that allows one to get rid of a quantum system, an operation that is not allowed in pure quantum mechanics. We introduce a new construction, the discard construction , which transforms any †-symmetric monoidal category into a symmetric monoidal category equipped with a discard map. Roughly speaking this construction consists in making any isometry causal. Using this construction, we provide an extension for several graphical languages that we prove to be complete for general quantum operations. However, this construction fails for some fringe cases like Clifford+T quantum mechanics, as the category does not have enough isometries.

ACM Transactions on Quantum Computing•Dec 21, 2021•9 citations
The discard ZX-calculus, a diagrammatic language for mixed-state quantum mechanics, is used to give a nonperturbative, categorical proof of the Bloch-Nordsieck cancellation of infrared divergences in QED. Soft photons are treated as an open quantum system: the resolved charged particles and hard photons form the system, while photons below a detector resolution form the environment. The reduced hard channel is a completely positive trace-preserving (CPTP) map, and the soft-photon theorem replaces the full S-matrix by a controlled displacement operator whose Feynman-Vernon influence functional satisfies the equal-history normalization F[J,J]=1{\cal F}[J,J]=1 F[J,J]=1. In the ZX-calculus, this normalization is a single diagrammatic identity: the doubled displacement diagram collapses to the bare wire under the unitarity, cyclicity, and discard rules. The proof therefore serves as a categorical consistency check on the open-system treatment of soft QED given in a companion paper; it confirms that the physical derivation is logically complete and free of hidden assumptions about the infrared limit. For off-diagonal hard-state elements, the same diagram yields the coherent-state overlap, giving a first-principles account of soft-cloud decoherence. The soft-shell coarse graining is then constructed as a CPTP Schur channel whose infinitesimal limit produces the exact Lindblad generator with jump operators determined by the eikonal emission amplitudes. Finally, a local CPTP-certification pipeline is developed for non-Markovian process tensors, enabling constant-time verification of trace preservation in open quantum simulations. The framework bridges categorical quantum semantics, non-equilibrium field theory, and practical open-system compilation.
I formulate unresolved soft-photon sector of QED as open quantum system. Resolved charged particles and hard photons form the system, unresolved soft photons form the environment, and basic object is the reduced density matrix. A resolved outcome fff of multiple hard particles and photons has probability Pf(i)=∑n∣⟨f,n∣S∣i,0⟩∣2=⟨i∣Ff∣i⟩P_{f}(i) =\sum_n|\langle f,n|S|i,0\rangle|^2=\langle i|F_f|i\ranglePf​(i)=∑n​∣⟨f,n∣S∣i,0⟩∣2=⟨i∣Ff​∣i⟩, with Kraus operators Kn=soft⟨n∣S∣0⟩softK_n= {}_{\rm soft} \langle n|S|0 \rangle_{\rm soft}Kn​=soft​⟨n∣S∣0⟩soft​ and effect Ff=∑nKn†ΠfKnF_f=\sum_nK_n^\daggerΠ_fK_nFf​=∑n​Kn†​Πf​Kn​. The SK formulation places unresolved virtual and real terms in one doubled-contour expansion. At one loop they carry the same on-shell eikonal kernel with opposite signs. This elegantly organizes the QED probability: for the same observable, perturbative order, diagrams, and phase space, the OQS gives the same infrared-finite terms as the full-QED. The soft-photon evolution is a unitary coherent-state displacement driven by the scattering current. The equal-history identity of influence functional exactly normalizes this soft evolution; together with the soft-photon theorem it removes the IR divergent leading-soft factor from inclusive probability. I also derive explicit leading-soft QED realization of scale-parametrized Lindblad evolution on a fixed hard-branch space. Tracing an infinitesimal soft-photon shell produces diagonal jump operators whose entries are fixed by the corresponding eikonal emission amplitudes. The finite-shell map is a completely positive unital Schur channel and, in the sharp scale-invariant leading-soft regime, a dephasing semigroup of a completely-positive-divisible scale flow. The resulting logarithmic visibility slope and monotonic purity loss are off-diagonal predictions of the reduced-state description. The same controlled-displacement dilation gives the Sudakov probability, Poisson soft-photon multiplicities, and the bremsstrahlung number spectrum.
I formulate black-hole-horizon-induced decoherence of charged branch codes as the leading-soft QED restricted to an exterior algebra, formulated as an open quantum system. The fixed-history Feynman--Vernon identity F[J,J]=1{\cal F}[J,J]=1F[J,J]=1 remains exact. Decoherence enters through the unequal-history influence factor that survives exterior monitoring and belongs to the complementary horizon output. In the coherent eikonal regime, I derive the completely positive Schur channel (EH(0)ρ)ab=⟨ΦbH,(0)∣ΦaH,(0)⟩ ρab({\cal E}_H^{(0)}ρ)_{ab}=\langleΦ_b^{H,(0)}|Φ_a^{H,(0)}\rangle \, ρ_{ab}(EH(0)​ρ)ab​=⟨ΦbH,(0)​∣ΦaH,(0)​⟩ρab​. The leading soft input is the eikonal factor, projected onto the horizon radiative algebra. The channel yields Gram-positivity constraints, an exterior quantum-eraser bound, finite-time non-Markovianity tests, soft/hard scaling criteria, and a charged-qutrit interferometer measuring a leading-soft Bargmann holonomy. The holonomy phase is the rephasing-invariant symplectic area of a triangle in horizon soft phase space. I show that its orientation, common-mode, triangulation, and completely positive determinant identities render falsifiable tests beyond pairwise two-path visibility.
Many stabilizer quantum error-correcting codes are built from a finite pattern repeated across space or time, such as lattice codes, translation-invariant graph states, and quantum convolutional codes. Ordinary stabilizer ZX-diagrams capture only finite truncations of such systems, obscuring the repeated structure that defines them. We introduce the delayed stabilizer ZX-calculus, a finite graphical language for these infinite, translation-invariant processes. It extends the odd-prime-dimensional stabilizer ZX-calculus with a single new generator, the delay, which feeds data from one time step to the next. We equip the calculus with two semantics. In the first semantics, we interpret the behaviour of a delayed ZX-diagram as an equivalence class of sequences of quantum channels; where two sequences are identified if they have the same information content. We show that the behaviour of a delayed ZX-diagram uniquely determines an infinite stabilizer group. In the second semantics, we interpret the delay as a formal variable, encoding the translation-invariant families of Pauli operators as generating functions. This allows us to represent a delayed ZX-diagram in terms of a tableau of generating functions, from which the infinite stabilizer group can be recovered. Finally, we give a complete axiomatization of the delayed stabilizer ZX-calculus, featuring generalised Euler decomposition and colour change rules. Using generalised forms of local complementation and pivoting, we reduce every diagram to a unique normal form. This establishes soundness, universality, and completeness for the generating tableau semantics.
There exist several graphical languages for quantum information processing, like quantum circuits, ZX-Calculus, ZW-Calculus, etc. Each of these languages forms a dagger-symmetric monoidal category (dagger-SMC) and comes with an interpretation functor to the dagger-SMC of (finite dimension) Hilbert spaces. In the recent years, one of the main achievements of the categorical approach to quantum mechanics has been to provide several equational theories for most of these graphical languages, making them complete for various fragments of pure quantum mechanics. We address the question of the extension of these languages beyond pure quantum mechanics, in order to reason on mixed states and general quantum operations, i.e. completely positive maps. Intuitively, such an extension relies on the axiomatisation of a discard map which allows one to get rid of a quantum system, operation which is not allowed in pure quantum mechanics. We introduce a new construction, the discard construction, which transforms any dagger-symmetric monoidal category into a symmetric monoidal category equipped with a discard map. Roughly speaking this construction consists in making any isometry causal. Using this construction we provide an extension for several graphical languages that we prove to be complete for general quantum operations. However this construction fails for some fringe cases like the Clifford+T quantum mechanics, as the category does not have enough isometries.
Built upon infrared QED formulated as an open quantum system, I use the complementary soft photons as a quantum instrument. The experiment selects the hard-state code, resolved process, trajectory, accepted modes, and photon readout. QED fixes the interaction. On an eikonal-degenerate reducing code, the momentum-flow jump acts as a scalar. A Lindbladian displacement removes this common term from the dissipator. Its interference with the Low--Burnett--Kroll operator enters a finite Hamiltonian. The residual dissipator Jλ(q^){\cal J}_\lambda(\hat q)Jλ​(q^​) measures direction- and helicity-dependent projections of orbital and spin angular momentum. I isolate the same operator in a selective photon measurement by coherently nulling the branch-independent eikonal output. The nulled click effects and the logical dissipator scale as Ed2E_d^2Ed2​. Both saturate at the lower infrared endpoint. In the semiclassical branch limit, the decoherence functionalΓab(1)(Ed)=e22∑λ=±∫0Edd3q(2π)32ω∣Jλ,a(q^)−Jλ,b(q^)∣2 \Gamma^{(1)}_{ab}(E_d)= \frac{e^2}{2}\sum_{\lambda=\pm}\int_0^{E_d} \frac{{\rm d}^3q}{(2\pi)^3 2\omega} \left|{\cal J}_{\lambda,a}(\hat q)-{\cal J}_{\lambda,b}(\hat q)\right|^2Γab(1)​(Ed​)=2e2​∑λ=±​∫0Ed​​(2π)32ωd3q​∣Jλ,a​(q^​)−Jλ,b​(q^​)∣2sets the soft-output overlap. Coherent prescribed currents exponentiate this functional. Repeated outputs give the exact sample complexity for hard-branch identification. General mixed outputs obey the quantum Chernoff bound. I also specialize privacy--correctability duality to the vacuum-plus-one-photon instrument. The resulting criterion identifies hard codes that hide their logical state from the retained soft output.I extend the instrument to orthogonal mode restrictions and zero-mean Gaussian soft states. I prove covariance under unitary mode transformations. I derive the equivalent positive noise-kernel form. The result promotes the finite two-path record to an operator-valued QED instrument. Soft radiation becomes a controlled probe of angular momentum.
There exist several graphical languages for quantum information processing, like quantum circuits, ZX-calculus, ZW-calculus, and so on. Each of these languages forms a †-symmetric monoidal category (†-SMC) and comes with an interpretation functor to the †-SMC of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. In recent years, one of the main achievements of the categorical approach to quantum mechanics has been to provide several equational theories for most of these graphical languages, making them complete for various fragments of pure quantum mechanics. We address the question of how to extend these languages beyond pure quantum mechanics to reason about mixed states and general quantum operations, i.e., completely positive maps. Intuitively, such an extension relies on the axiomatisation of a discard map that allows one to get rid of a quantum system, an operation that is not allowed in pure quantum mechanics. We introduce a new construction, the discard construction , which transforms any †-symmetric monoidal category into a symmetric monoidal category equipped with a discard map. Roughly speaking this construction consists in making any isometry causal. Using this construction, we provide an extension for several graphical languages that we prove to be complete for general quantum operations. However, this construction fails for some fringe cases like Clifford+T quantum mechanics, as the category does not have enough isometries.