BibTeX
@MISC{Baez_higher-dimensionalalgebra,
author = {John C. Baez},
title = {Higher-dimensional algebra II: 2-Hilbert spaces},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
A 2-Hilbert space is a category with structures and properties analogous to those of a Hilbert space. More precisely, we define a 2-Hilbert space to be an abelian category enriched over Hilb with a ∗-structure, conjugate-linear on the hom-sets, satisfying 〈fg,h 〉 = 〈g,f ∗ h 〉 = 〈f,hg ∗ 〉. We also define monoidal, braided monoidal, and symmetric monoidal versions of 2-Hilbert spaces, which we call 2-H*-algebras, braided 2-H*-algebras, and symmetric 2-H*-algebras, and we describe the relation between these and tangles in 2, 3, and 4 dimensions, respectively. We prove a generalized Doplicher-Roberts theorem stating that every symmetric 2-H*-algebra is equivalent to the category Rep(G) of continuous unitary finite-dimensional representations of some compact supergroupoid G. The equivalence is given by a categorified version of the Gelfand transform; we also construct a categorified version of the Fourier transform when G is a compact abelian group. Finally, we characterize Rep(G) by its universal properties when G is a compact classical group. For example, Rep(U(n)) is the free connected symmetric 2-H*-algebra on one even object of dimension n. 1
