English

Categories of orthogonality spaces

Rings and Algebras 2020-03-19 v2

Abstract

An orthogonality space is a set equipped with a symmetric and irreflexive binary relation. We consider orthogonality spaces with the additional property that any collection of mutually orthogonal elements gives rise to the structure of a Boolean algebra. Together with the maps that preserve the Boolean structures, we are led to the category NOS{\mathcal N}{\mathcal O}{\mathcal S} of normal orthogonality spaces. Moreover, an orthogonality space of finite rank is called linear if for any two distinct elements ee and ff there is a third one gg such that exactly one of ff and gg is orthogonal to ee and the pairs e,fe, f and e,ge, g have the same orthogonal complement. Linear orthogonality spaces arise from finite-dimensional Hermitian spaces. We are led to the full subcategory LOS{\mathcal L}{\mathcal O}{\mathcal S} of NOS{\mathcal N}{\mathcal O}{\mathcal S} and we show that the morphisms are the orthogonality-preserving lineations. Finally, we consider the full subcategory EOS{\mathcal E}{\mathcal O}{\mathcal S} of LOS{\mathcal L}{\mathcal O}{\mathcal S} whose members arise from positive definite Hermitian spaces over Baer ordered \star-fields with a Euclidean fixed field. We establish that the morphisms of EOS{\mathcal E}{\mathcal O}{\mathcal S} are induced by generalised semiunitary mappings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.03313,
  title  = {Categories of orthogonality spaces},
  author = {Jan Paseka and Thomas Vetterlein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.03313},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:06:47.830Z