From Petri Nets to Linear Logic

Linear logic has been recently introduced by Girard as a logic of actions that seems well suited for concurrent computation. In this paper, we establish a systematic correspondence between Petri nets, linear logic theories, and linear categories. Such a correspondence sheds new light on the relationships between linear logic and concurrency, and on how both areas are related to category theory. Categories are here viewed as concurrent systems whose objects are states, and whose morphisms are transitions. This is an instance of the Lambek-Lawvere correspondence between logic and category theory that cannot be expressed within the more restricted framework of the Curry-Howard correspondence.