English

Space in Monoidal Categories

Category Theory 2018-03-05 v3 Logic in Computer Science Quantum Physics

Abstract

The category of Hilbert modules may be interpreted as a naive quantum field theory over a base space. Open subsets of the base space are recovered as idempotent subunits, which form a meet-semilattice in any firm braided monoidal category. There is an operation of restriction to an idempotent subunit: it is a graded monad on the category, and has the universal property of algebraic localisation. Spacetime structure on the base space induces a closure operator on the idempotent subunits. Restriction is then interpreted as spacetime propagation. This lets us study relativistic quantum information theory using methods entirely internal to monoidal categories. As a proof of concept, we show that quantum teleportation is only successfully supported on the intersection of Alice and Bob's causal future.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1704.08086,
  title  = {Space in Monoidal Categories},
  author = {Pau Enrique Moliner and Chris Heunen and Sean Tull},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.08086},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

In Proceedings QPL 2017, arXiv:1802.09737

R2 v1 2026-06-22T19:28:23.620Z