Quantum logics close to Boolean algebras

TL;DR

This paper explores specific classes of orthomodular posets with symmetric difference, called ODPs, that are close to Boolean algebras but retain quantum-like non-compatibility features, enriching quantum logic foundations.

Contribution

It introduces and analyzes three classes of 'almost Boolean' ODPs with XOR-like connectives, revealing their inclusion relations and potential for quantum mechanics foundations.

Findings

Established inclusion relations among the three classes of ODPs.

Identified that these ODPs can exhibit high degrees of non-compatibility.

Showed that ODPs are close to Boolean algebras but still retain quantum features.

Abstract

We consider orthomodular posets endowed with a symmetric difference. We call them ODPs. Expressed in the quantum logic language, we consider quantum logics with an XOR-type connective. We study three classes of "almost Boolean" ODPs, two of them defined by requiring rather specific behaviour of infima and the third by a Boolean-like behaviour of Frink ideals. We establish a (rather surprising) inclusion between the three classes, shadding thus light on their intrinsic properties. (More details can be found in the Introduction that follows.) Let us only note that the orthomodular posets pursued here, though close to Boolean algebras (i.e., close to standard quantum logics), still have a potential for an arbitrarily high degree of non-compatibility and hence they may enrich the studies of mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics.