Abstract Operator Systems over the Cone of Positive Semidefinite Matrices

TL;DR

This paper studies various abstract operator systems over the cone of positive semidefinite matrices, analyzing their finite generation and realization properties, with implications for quantum information theory.

Contribution

It provides a complete characterization of finite generation and finite-dimensional realizability for several operator systems, revealing new distinctions among them.

Findings

Decomposable maps form a finitely generated system without finite-dimensional realization.

Doubly completely positive maps are not finitely generated but have finite-dimensional realization.

No finitary Choi-type characterization exists for doubly completely positive maps.

Abstract

There are several important abstract operator systems with the convex cone of positive semidefinite matrices at the first level. Well-known are the operator systems of separable matrices, of positive semidefinite matrices, and of block positive matrices. In terms of maps, these are the operator systems of entanglement breaking, completely positive, and positive linear maps, respectively. But there exist other interesting and less well-studied such operator systems, for example those of completely copositive maps, doubly completely positive maps, and decomposable maps, which all play an important role in quantum information theory. We investigate which of these systems is finitely generated, and which admits a finite-dimensional realization in the sense of the Choi-Effros Theorem. We answer this question for all of the described systems completely. Our main contribution is that decomposable maps form a system which does not admit a finite-dimensional realization, though being finitely generated, whereas the system of doubly completely positive maps is not finitely generated, though having a finite-dimensional realization. This also implies that there cannot exist a finitary Choi-type characterization of doubly completely positive maps.