Quantum logic and the locally convex spaces

Abstract

An important theorem of Kakutani and Mackey characterizes an infinite dimensional real (complex) Hilbert space as an infinite dimensional real (complex) Banach space whose lattice of closed subspaces admits an orthocomplementation. This result, also valid for quaternionic spaces, has proved useful as a justification for the unique role of Hilbert space in quantum theory. With a like application in mind, we present in the present paper a number of characterizations of real and complex Hilbert space in the class of locally convex spaces. One of these is an extension of the Kakutani-Mackey result from the infinite dimensional Banach spaces to the class of all infinite dimensional complete Mackey spaces. The implications for the foundations of quantum theory are discussed.