A Process-Theoretic Church of the Larger Hilbert Space

Abstract

We show how to reconstruct a process theory of local systems starting from a global theory of reversible processes on a single global system, by using the purification principle. In such a process theory, local systems are not given, but rather `emerge' as the global system is decomposed into subsystems. Local systems thus have specific identities and their composition is naturally limited by structural constraints, a behaviour which we formalise by defining symmetric partially-monoidal categories. We reconstruct quantum theory from the global theories of unitary groups acting on projective Hilbert spaces.