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arXiv:1112.3805 · Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science

The Expectation Monad in Quantum Foundations

Bart Jacobs, Jorik Mandemaker

Published Oct 1, 2012• 23 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The expectation monad is introduced abstractly via two composable adjunctions, but concretely captures measures. It turns out to sit in between known monads: on the one hand the distribution and ultrafilter monad, and on the other hand the continuation monad. This expectation monad is used in two probabilistic analogues of fundamental results of Manes and Gelfand for the ultrafilter monad: algebras of the expectation monad are convex compact Hausdorff spaces, and are dually equivalent to so-called Banach effect algebras. These structures capture states and effects in quantum foundations, and also the duality between them. Moreover, the approach leads to a new re-formulation of Gleason's theorem, expressing that effects on a Hilbert space are free effect modules on projections, obtained via tensoring with the unit interval.

DOI
10.4204/eptcs.95.12

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The expectation monad is introduced abstractly via two composable adjunctions, but concretely captures measures. It turns out to sit in between known monads: on the one hand the distribution and ultrafilter monad, and on the other hand the continuation monad. This expectation monad is used in two probabilistic analogues of fundamental results of Manes and Gelfand for the ultrafilter monad: algebras of the expectation monad are convex compact Hausdorff spaces, and are dually equivalent to so-called Banach effect algebras. These structures capture states and effects in quantum foundations, and also the duality between them. Moreover, the approach leads to a new re-formulation of Gleason's theorem, expressing that effects on a Hilbert space are free effect modules on projections, obtained via tensoring with the unit interval.
Monads are a ubiquitous structure in functional programming used for modelling computational effects. For example, the state monad models the effect of a computation interacting with a memory system. Here we introduce the quantum instrument monad IA\mathcal{I}_\mathcal{A}IA​, which models the effect of a computation interacting with a quantum system with algebra of observables A\mathcal{A}A. It can be thought of as a noncommutative generalization of the state monad. We construct this quantum instrument monad in two versions: a finitary version on the category of sets and a measure-theoretic version on the category of measurable spaces (the latter under the assumption that A\mathcal{A}A is a type I von Neumann algebra with separable predual). Both versions are strong monads. The construction of the measure-theoretic version is based on a new notion of integral of a quantum-operation-valued function against a state-valued measure.
From every pair of adjoint functors it is possible to produce a (possibly trivial) equivalence of categories by restricting to the subcategories where the unit and counit are isomorphisms. If we do this for the adjunction between effect algebras and abstract convex sets, we get the surprising result that the equivalent subcategories consist of reflexive order-unit spaces and reflexive base-norm spaces, respectively. These are the convex sets that can occur as state spaces in generalized probabilistic theories satisfying both the no-restriction hypothesis and its dual. The linearity of the morphisms is automatic. If we add a compact topology to either the states or the effects, we can obtain a duality for all Banach order-unit spaces or all Banach base-norm spaces, but not both at the same time.
The most general type of measurement in quantum physics is modeled by a positive operator-valued measure (POVM). Mathematically, a POVM is a generalization of a measure, whose values are not real numbers, but positive operators on a Hilbert space. POVMs can equivalently be viewed as maps between effect algebras or as maps between algebras for the Giry monad. We will show that this equivalence is an instance of a duality between two categories. In the special case of continuous POVMs, we obtain two equivalent representations in terms of morphisms between von Neumann algebras.
In the quantum probability theory the 6-field of random events is replaoed by the lattice of orthogonal projectors in a separable infinite dimensional Hilbert space H.A countably additive function from this lattices to the unit interval constitutes a state, the non-commutative analogue of a probability measure.The Theorem of Gleason [4] asserts that every state is of the form n--tr jtT, where jt runs over all projectors and T is a probability operator on H, i.e. a positive linear operator of unit trace.Conversely, every probability operator determines a state by the Gleason formula.From now onwards let S stand for the set of all states, i.e. all probability operators on H.We shall dienote by the space of-? ell nuclear linear operators acting in H with the norm jjïj|.j= tr{TT*) 1 ^2.Of coarse S is e closed and convex subset Of TyIn quantum theory to every physical quantity or observable th^re corresponds e sslf»adjoint not necessarily bounded linear operator on Hs By 0 ws shall denote the set of all obt ;ry£bles-Given he-0 f tac pi'cb^ivility distribution of A at the etato T is defined for ail Eoi'oi subsets E of the real
De Finetti theorems tell us that if we expect the likelihood of outcomes to be independent of their order, then these sequences of outcomes could be equivalently generated by drawing an experiment at random from a distribution, and repeating it over and over. In particular, the quantum de Finetti theorem says that exchangeable sequences of quantum states are always represented by distributions over a single state produced over and over. The main result of this paper is that this quantum de Finetti construction has a universal property as a categorical limit. This allows us to pass canonically between categorical treatments of finite dimensional quantum theory and the infinite dimensional. The treatment here is through understanding properties of (co)limits with respect to the contravariant functor which takes a C*-algebra describing a physical system to its convex, compact space of states, and through discussion of the Radon probability monad. We also show that the same categorical analysis also justifies a continuous de Finetti theorem for classical probability.
Effect algebras were introduced as an abstract algebraic model for Hilbert space effects representing quantum mechanical measurements. We study additional structures on an effect algebra E that enable us to define spectrality and spectral resolutions for elements of E akin to those of self-adjoint operators. These structures, called compression bases, are special families of maps on E , analogous to the set of compressions on operator algebras, order unit spaces or unital abelian groups. Elements of a compression base are in one-to-one correspondence with certain elements of E , called projections. An effect algebra is called spectral if it has a distinguished compression base with two special properties: the projection cover property (i.e., for every element a in E there is a smallest projection majorizing a ), and the so-called b-comparability property, which is an analogue of general comparability in operator algebras or unital abelian groups. It is shown that in a spectral archimedean effect algebra E , every a∈E admits a unique rational spectral resolution and its properties are studied. If in addition E possesses a separating set of states, then every element a∈E is determined by its spectral resolution. It is also proved that for some types of interval effect algebras (with RDP, archimedean divisible), spectrality of E is equivalent to spectrality of its universal group and the corresponding rational spectral resolutions are the same. In particular, for convex archimedean effect algebras, spectral resolutions in E are in agreement with spectral resolutions in the corresponding order unit space.