English

Ontological models for quantum theory as functors

Quantum Physics 2020-05-04 v3 Category Theory

Abstract

We interpret ontological models for finite-dimensional quantum theory as functors from the category of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces and bounded linear maps to the category of measurable spaces and Markov kernels. This uniformises several earlier results, that we analyse more closely: Pusey, Barrett, and Rudolph's result rules out monoidal functors; Leifer and Maroney's result rules out functors that preserve a duality between states and measurement; Aaronson et al's result rules out functors that adhere to the Schr\"odinger equation. We also prove that it is possible to have epistemic functors that take values in signed Markov kernels.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1905.09055,
  title  = {Ontological models for quantum theory as functors},
  author = {Alexandru Gheorghiu and Chris Heunen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.09055},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

In Proceedings QPL 2019, arXiv:2004.14750

R2 v1 2026-06-23T09:17:14.932Z