Categorical formulation of finite-dimensional quantum algebras (Q543370)

One provocative proposal to categorify quantum mechanics is to base it on \(\dagger\)-Frobenius monoids [\textit{B. Coecke, D. Pavlovic} and \textit{J. Vicary}, Dagger-Frobenius algebras in FdHilb are orthogonal bases. Technical Report, RR-08-03, Oxford Univ. Computing Lab (2008)]. The physical intuition behind this approach is that time-reversal of processes -- the \(\dagger\)-functor -- is somehow a central fundamental concept [\textit{J. C. Baez}, in: D. Rickles (ed.) et al., The structural foundations of quantum gravity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 240--265 (2006; Zbl 1125.83005)]. Other fundamental-looking structures, such as the complex numbers, are de-emphasized. This paper is about categorifying finite-dimensional \(C^\star\)-algebras as certain types of \(\dagger\)-Frobenius monoids (Theorem 4.6). A key property of finite-dimensional commutative \(C^\star\)-algebras is the spectral theorem. The main result of the paper is a \(\dagger\)-Frobenius monoid categorification of the spectral theorem (Section 5). The relevance to TQFT is discussed.