Involutive Categories and Monoids, with a GNS-correspondence

This paper develops the basics of the theory of involutive categories and shows that such categories provide the natural setting in which to describe involutive monoids. It is shown how categories of Eilenberg-Moore algebras of involutive monads are involutive, with conjugation for modules and vector spaces as special case. The core of the so-called Gelfand-Naimark-Segal (GNS) construction is identified as a bijective correspondence between states on involutive monoids and inner products. This correspondence exists in arbritrary involutive categories

The classification problem for automorphisms of C*-algebras

We present an overview of the recent developments in the study of the classification problem for automorphisms of C*-algebras from the perspective of Borel complexity theory.Comment: 21 page

Quantum Query Algorithms are Completely Bounded Forms

We prove a characterization of $t$-query quantum algorithms in terms of the unit ball of a space of degree-$2t$ polynomials. Based on this, we obtain a refined notion of approximate polynomial degree that equals the quantum query complexity, answering a question of Aaronson et al. (CCC'16). Our proof is based on a fundamental result of Christensen and Sinclair (J. Funct. Anal., 1987) that generalizes the well-known Stinespring representation for quantum channels to multilinear forms. Using our characterization, we show that many polynomials of degree four are far from those coming from two-query quantum algorithms. We also give a simple and short proof of one of the results of Aaronson et al. showing an equivalence between one-query quantum algorithms and bounded quadratic polynomials.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures. v2: 27 pages, minor changes in response to referee comment

Relating Operator Spaces via Adjunctions

This chapter uses categorical techniques to describe relations between various sets of operators on a Hilbert space, such as self-adjoint, positive, density, effect and projection operators. These relations, including various Hilbert-Schmidt isomorphisms of the form tr(A-), are expressed in terms of dual adjunctions, and maps between them. Of particular interest is the connection with quantum structures, via a dual adjunction between convex sets and effect modules. The approach systematically uses categories of modules, via their description as Eilenberg-Moore algebras of a monad

Interactions in noncommutative dynamics

A mathematical notion of interaction is introduced for noncommutative dynamical systems, i.e., for one parameter groups of *-automorphisms of \Cal B(H) endowed with a certain causal structure. With any interaction there is a well-defined "state of the past" and a well-defined "state of the future". We describe the construction of many interactions involving cocycle perturbations of the CAR/CCR flows and show that they are nontrivial. The proof of nontriviality is based on a new inequality, relating the eigenvalue lists of the "past" and "future" states to the norm of a linear functional on a certain C^*-algebra.Comment: 22 pages. Replacement corrects misnumbering of formulas in section 4. No change in mathematical conten