Oxford University Press eBooks

Unitary Equivalence and Physical Equivalence

Laura Ruetsche

Published Feb 5, 2013• 5 citations

Abstract

This chapter evaluates whether unitary equivalence is an appropriate criterion of physical equivalence for quantum theories that fall outside the scope of the comforting uniqueness results. It describes the Stone-von Neumann and Jordan-Wigner uniqueness results, provides examples of unitarily inequivalent representations, and proposes an alternative to unitary equivalence as a criterion for physical equivalence. The chapter also offers an impressionistic introduction to the rudiments of operator algebra theory.

DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195392043.013.0015

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