Quantizations in a category of relations (Q1780381)

Various concepts of quantization have been proposed. The authors of this paper believe that quantization is something depending on constraints and that quantization has its natural description in terms of a theory of representations for constraints. They believe also that it is category theory that is adequate for the formulation of a representation theory of constraints with full generality. Constraints take the form of relations between natural transformations, and a representation of the constraints is a category that supports all given functors and natural transformations with assumed relations. Quantizations are related to morphisms in the category of possible representations of a given set of constraints. Categories of relations are defined in the context of symmetric monoidal categories. They are shown to be symmetric monoidal categories in their own right and are found to be isomorphic to certain categories of \(A-A\) bicomodules. Properties of relations are defined in terms of the symmetric monoidal structure. Equivalence relations are shown to be commutative monoids in the category of relations. Quantization is a property of functors between monoidal categories. This notion of quantization induces a deformation of all algebraic structures in the category, in particular the ones defining properties of relations like transitivity and symmetry.