Categories of orthogonality spaces (Q2229976)

The authors see the main motivation of their work in determining the role of orthogonality spaces within the traditional quantum-physical model based on the Hilbert space formalism; this context is explained in detail in the introduction. An orthogonality space is a set equipped with a symmetric and irreflexive binary relation, called orthogonality; this notion, which is familiar at least since the 70-ies of the last century, has recently been studied from the mentioned point of view by the second author in a series of papers; see, e.g., [\textit{T. Vetterlein}, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 60, No. 2, 727--738 (2021; Zbl 1503.46020); Int. J. Geom. Methods Mod. Phys. 16, No. 5, Article ID 1950080, 24 p. (2019; Zbl 1421.81010)]. The orthogonality spaces dealt with in the paper are mainly of finite rank (have only finite orthogonal subsets). An orthogonality space \((X,\perp)\) is said to be normal if every finite subset consisting of mutually orthogonal elements generates in a certain way a collection of orthoclosed subsets of \(X\) that is a Boolean algebra. The category $\mathcal{NOS}$ of normal orthogonality spaces and normal homomorphisms (those preserving these Boolean algebras) is the first one investigated in the paper. For a more extensive study of this category, see the authors' paper [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 507, No. 1, Article ID 125730, 17 p. (2022; Zbl 07428672)]. Another category considered is $\mathcal{LOS}$, a full subcategory of $\mathcal{NOS}$ whose objects are linear orthogonality spaces (a space is linear if for any two distinct elements \(e\) and \(f\) there is a third one, \(g\), such that exactly one of \(f\) and \(g\) is orthogonal to \(e\) and the pairs \(e, f\) and \(e, g\) have the same orthogonal complements). A natural source of such orthogonality spaces is the finite-dimensional Hermitian spaces. It is shown that the morphisms of $\mathcal{LOS}$ are precisely the orthogonality-preserving lineations. One more category $\mathcal{EOS}$ is the full subcategory of $\mathcal{LOS}$ of those orthogonality spaces that arise from (finite-dimensional) positive definite Hermitian spaces over Baer ordered $*$-fields with the fixed field Euclidean. The morphisms of EOS are shown to be induced by generalised semiunitary maps.