English

Noncommutativity as a colimit

Category Theory 2012-12-05 v3 Operator Algebras Quantum Physics

Abstract

Every partial algebra is the colimit of its total subalgebras. We prove this result for partial Boolean algebras (including orthomodular lattices) and the new notion of partial C*-algebras (including noncommutative C*-algebras), and variations such as partial complete Boolean algebras and partial AW*-algebras. The first two results are related by taking projections. As corollaries we find extensions of Stone duality and Gelfand duality. Finally, we investigate the extent to which the Bohrification construction, that works on partial C*-algebras, is functorial.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1003.3618,
  title  = {Noncommutativity as a colimit},
  author = {Benno van den Berg and Chris Heunen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1003.3618},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

22 pages; updated theorem 15, added propoisition 36

R2 v1 2026-06-21T14:59:30.670Z