Quantising on a category (Q816120)

The present paper is an interesting survey concerning the author's attempts [see \textit{C. J. Isham}, A new approach to quantising space-time I, II, III. Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 7, No. 2, 331--367 (2003; Zbl 1093.81058), Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 7, No. 5, 807--829 (2003; Zbl 1093.81058), Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 8, No. 5, 797--811 (2004; Zbl 1095.81058)] at quantizing ``classical theories'' whose underlying ``configuration space'' (or, rather, a history-theory analogue) is the set of objects \(Ob({\mathcal Q})\) of a certain category \({\mathcal Q}\), the basic motivation coming from quantum gravity, and the fundamental example kept in mind throughout is that of homogeneous spaces of Lie groups. Now, the crucial observation is that \(Ob({\mathcal Q})\) and the monoid \(AF ({\mathcal Q})\) of arrow fields acting on \(Ob({\mathcal Q})\) -- which generalizes momenta -- can be properly organized in a catepory quantization monoid (CQM) and the latter is then represented via operators on a certain presheaf of Hilbert spaces over \(Ob({\mathcal Q})\); the whole set-up is strongly inspired by the group theoretical Mackey's constructions (extra refinements are needed in order to cope with faithfulness and (lack of) unitarity). A specific example is then treated in full detail. Although, as the author himself points out at the end of the paper, the techniques introduced here just provide a sort of tool-kit for constructing more realistic physical theories, yet the conceptual framework developed here could be quite fruitful precisely in view of its abstract features, firmly rooted in physical intuition.