Pure Maps between Euclidean Jordan Algebras

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new definition of pure positive linear maps between Euclidean Jordan Algebras, showing they form a dagger category and characterizing pure dagger-positive maps as the Jordan algebraic sequential product.

Contribution

It generalizes the concept of purity to EJAs, establishes the categorical structure of pure maps, and characterizes dagger-positive maps via the sequential product.

Findings

Pure maps form a dagger category.

Dagger-positive maps correspond to the Jordan algebraic sequential product.

EJAs are characterized as the most general systems in a dagger-effectus framework.

Abstract

We propose a definition of purity for positive linear maps between Euclidean Jordan Algebras (EJA) that generalizes the notion of purity for quantum systems. We show that this definition of purity is closed under composition and taking adjoints and thus that the pure maps form a dagger category (which sets it apart from other possible definitions.) In fact, from the results presented in this paper, it follows that the category of EJAs with positive contractive linear maps is a dagger-effectus, a type of structure originally defined to study von Neumann algebras in an abstract categorical setting. In combination with previous work this characterizes EJAs as the most general systems allowed in a generalized probabilistic theory that is simultaneously a dagger-effectus. Using the dagger structure we get a notion of dagger-positive maps of the form f = g*g. We give a complete characterization of the pure dagger-positive maps and show that these correspond precisely to the Jordan algebraic version of the sequential product that maps (a,b) to sqrt(a) b sqrt(a). The notion of dagger-positivity therefore characterizes the sequential product.