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Some Possible Roles for Topos Theory in Quantum Theory and Quantum Gravity

Isham, C J, Butterfield, J

Published Oct 5, 1999• 98 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We discuss some ways in which topos theory (a branch of category theory) can be applied to interpretative problems in quantum theory and quantum gravity. In Section 1, we introduce these problems. In Section 2, we introduce topos theory, especially the idea of a topos of presheaves. In Section 3, we discuss several possible applications of topos theory to the problems in Section 1. In Section 4, we draw some conclusions.

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Some Possible Roles for Topos Theory in Quantum Theory and Quantum Gravity

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We discuss some ways in which topos theory (a branch of category theory) can be applied to interpretative problems in quantum theory and quantum gravity. In Section 1, we introduce these problems. In Section 2, we introduce topos theory, especially the idea of a topos of presheaves. In Section 3, we discuss several possible applications of topos theory to the problems in Section 1. In Section 4, we draw some conclusions.
The basic notion of how topoi can be utilized in physics is presented here. Topos and category theory serve as valuable tools which extend our ordinary set-theoretical conceptions, can further the study of quantum logic and give rise to new and 'neo-realistic' descriptions of quantum physics, i.e. make possible the construction of a general scheme for quantum physics, which 'looks like' the classical one. A novel way of writing theories of physics, by representing a formal language of a physical system, into an appropriate topos, is analyzed here. This novel approach is initiated by C.J. Isham and A. Doering and the major part of this paper comes from there; however there has been an effort in simplifying the basic ideas and do this work accessible to 'less experts' of the field. A minor, but not less important, part of this paper is devoted to resuming, in a concise way the background knowledge of logic, quantum logic and category theory, that is necessary for anyone who wishes to follow the whole topos approach.
This paper is the fourth in a series whose goal is to develop a fundamentally new way of building theories of physics. The motivation comes from a desire to address certain deep issues that arise in the quantum theory of gravity. Our basic contention is that constructing a theory of physics is equivalent to finding a representation in a topos of a certain formal language that is attached to the system. Classical physics arises when the topos is the category of sets. Other types of theory employ a different topos. The previous papers in this series are concerned with implementing this program for a single system. In the present paper, we turn to considering a collection of systems; in particular, we are interested in the relation between the topos representation for a composite system and the representations for its constituents. We also study this problem for the disjoint sum of two systems. Our approach to these matters is to construct a category of systems and to find a topos representation of the entire category.
We discuss some conceptual issues that any approach to quantum gravity has to confront. In particular, it is argued that one has to find a theory that can be interpreted in a realist manner, because theories with an instrumentalist interpretation are problematic for several well-known reasons. Since the Hilbert space formalism almost inevitably forces an instrumentalist interpretation on us, we suggest that a theory of quantum gravity should not be based on the Hilbert space formalism. We briefly sketch the topos approach, which makes use of the internal logic of a topos associated with a quantum system and comes with a natural (neo-)realist interpretation. Finally, we make some remarks on the relation between system logic and metalogic.
All current approaches to quantum gravity employ essentially standard quantum theory including, in particular, continuum quantities such as the real or complex numbers. However, I wish to argue that this may be fundamentally wrong in so far as the use of these continuum quantities in standard quantum theory can be traced back to certain {\em a priori} assumptions about the nature of space and time: assumptions that may be incompatible with the view of space and time adopted by a quantum gravity theory. My conjecture is that in, some yet to be determined sense, to each type of space-time there is associated a corresponding type of quantum theory in which continuum quantities do not necessarily appear, being replaced with structures that are appropriate to the specific space-time. Topos theory then arises as a possible tool for `gluing' together these different theories associated with the different space-times. As a concrete example of the use of topos ideas, I summarise recent work applying presheaf theory to the Kochen-Specher theorem and the assignment of values to physical quantities in a quantum theory.
Topos theory has been suggested first by Isham and Butterfield, and then by Isham and Döring, as an alternative mathematical structure within which to formulate physical theories. In particular, it has been used to reformulate standard quantum mechanics in such a way that a novel type of logic is used to represent propositions. In this paper, we extend this formulation to include the notion of a group and group transformation in such a way that we overcome the problem of twisted presheaves. In order to implement this we need to change the type of topos involved, so as to render the notion of continuity of the group action meaningful.