91 research outputs found
A globalisation of the Gelfand duality theorem
AbstractIn this paper we bring together results from a series of previous papers to prove the constructive version of the Gelfand duality theorem in any Grothendieck topos E, obtaining a dual equivalence between the category of commutative Câ-algebras and the category of compact, completely regular locales in the topos E
The Gelfand spectrum of a noncommutative C*-algebra: a topos-theoretic approach
We compare two influential ways of defining a generalized notion of space.
The first, inspired by Gelfand duality, states that the category of
'noncommutative spaces' is the opposite of the category of C*-algebras. The
second, loosely generalizing Stone duality, maintains that the category of
'pointfree spaces' is the opposite of the category of frames (i.e., complete
lattices in which the meet distributes over arbitrary joins). One possible
relationship between these two notions of space was unearthed by Banaschewski
and Mulvey, who proved a constructive version of Gelfand duality in which the
Gelfand spectrum of a commutative C*-algebra comes out as a pointfree space.
Being constructive, this result applies in arbitrary toposes (with natural
numbers objects, so that internal C*-algebras can be defined). Earlier work by
the first three authors, shows how a noncommutative C*-algebra gives rise to a
commutative one internal to a certain sheaf topos. The latter, then, has a
constructive Gelfand spectrum, also internal to the topos in question. After a
brief review of this work, we compute the so-called external description of
this internal spectrum, which in principle is a fibered pointfree space in the
familiar topos Sets of sets and functions. However, we obtain the external
spectrum as a fibered topological space in the usual sense. This leads to an
explicit Gelfand transform, as well as to a topological reinterpretation of the
Kochen-Specker Theorem of quantum mechanics, which supplements the remarkable
topos-theoretic version of this theorem due to Butterfield and Isham.Comment: 12 page
Constructive Gelfand duality for C*-algebras
We present a constructive proof of Gelfand duality for C*-algebras by
reducing the problem to Gelfand duality for real C*-algebras.Comment: 6page
Constructive pointfree topology eliminates non-constructive representation theorems from Riesz space theory
In Riesz space theory it is good practice to avoid representation theorems
which depend on the axiom of choice. Here we present a general methodology to
do this using pointfree topology. To illustrate the technique we show that
almost f-algebras are commutative. The proof is obtained relatively
straightforward from the proof by Buskes and van Rooij by using the pointfree
Stone-Yosida representation theorem by Coquand and Spitters
Bohrification
New foundations for quantum logic and quantum spaces are constructed by
merging algebraic quantum theory and topos theory. Interpreting Bohr's
"doctrine of classical concepts" mathematically, given a quantum theory
described by a noncommutative C*-algebra A, we construct a topos T(A), which
contains the "Bohrification" B of A as an internal commutative C*-algebra. Then
B has a spectrum, a locale internal to T(A), the external description S(A) of
which we interpret as the "Bohrified" phase space of the physical system. As in
classical physics, the open subsets of S(A) correspond to (atomic)
propositions, so that the "Bohrified" quantum logic of A is given by the
Heyting algebra structure of S(A). The key difference between this logic and
its classical counterpart is that the former does not satisfy the law of the
excluded middle, and hence is intuitionistic. When A contains sufficiently many
projections (e.g. when A is a von Neumann algebra, or, more generally, a
Rickart C*-algebra), the intuitionistic quantum logic S(A) of A may also be
compared with the traditional quantum logic, i.e. the orthomodular lattice of
projections in A. This time, the main difference is that the former is
distributive (even when A is noncommutative), while the latter is not.
This chapter is a streamlined synthesis of 0709.4364, 0902.3201, 0905.2275.Comment: 44 pages; a chapter of the first author's PhD thesis, to appear in
"Deep Beauty" (ed. H. Halvorson
Bohrification of operator algebras and quantum logic
Following Birkhoff and von Neumann, quantum logic has traditionally been
based on the lattice of closed linear subspaces of some Hilbert space, or, more
generally, on the lattice of projections in a von Neumann algebra A.
Unfortunately, the logical interpretation of these lattices is impaired by
their nondistributivity and by various other problems. We show that a possible
resolution of these difficulties, suggested by the ideas of Bohr, emerges if
instead of single projections one considers elementary propositions to be
families of projections indexed by a partially ordered set C(A) of appropriate
commutative subalgebras of A. In fact, to achieve both maximal generality and
ease of use within topos theory, we assume that A is a so-called Rickart
C*-algebra and that C(A) consists of all unital commutative Rickart
C*-subalgebras of A. Such families of projections form a Heyting algebra in a
natural way, so that the associated propositional logic is intuitionistic:
distributivity is recovered at the expense of the law of the excluded middle.
Subsequently, generalizing an earlier computation for n-by-n matrices, we
prove that the Heyting algebra thus associated to A arises as a basis for the
internal Gelfand spectrum (in the sense of Banaschewski-Mulvey) of the
"Bohrification" of A, which is a commutative Rickart C*-algebra in the topos of
functors from C(A) to the category of sets. We explain the relationship of this
construction to partial Boolean algebras and Bruns-Lakser completions. Finally,
we establish a connection between probability measure on the lattice of
projections on a Hilbert space H and probability valuations on the internal
Gelfand spectrum of A for A = B(H).Comment: 31 page
A topos for algebraic quantum theory
The aim of this paper is to relate algebraic quantum mechanics to topos
theory, so as to construct new foundations for quantum logic and quantum
spaces. Motivated by Bohr's idea that the empirical content of quantum physics
is accessible only through classical physics, we show how a C*-algebra of
observables A induces a topos T(A) in which the amalgamation of all of its
commutative subalgebras comprises a single commutative C*-algebra. According to
the constructive Gelfand duality theorem of Banaschewski and Mulvey, the latter
has an internal spectrum S(A) in T(A), which in our approach plays the role of
a quantum phase space of the system. Thus we associate a locale (which is the
topos-theoretical notion of a space and which intrinsically carries the
intuitionistic logical structure of a Heyting algebra) to a C*-algebra (which
is the noncommutative notion of a space). In this setting, states on A become
probability measures (more precisely, valuations) on S(A), and self-adjoint
elements of A define continuous functions (more precisely, locale maps) from
S(A) to Scott's interval domain. Noting that open subsets of S(A) correspond to
propositions about the system, the pairing map that assigns a (generalized)
truth value to a state and a proposition assumes an extremely simple
categorical form. Formulated in this way, the quantum theory defined by A is
essentially turned into a classical theory, internal to the topos T(A).Comment: 52 pages, final version, to appear in Communications in Mathematical
Physic
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