CP∞ and beyond: 2-categorical dilation theory

The problem of extending the insights and techniques of categorical quantum mechanics to infinite-dimensional systems was considered in (Coecke and Heunen, 2016). In that work the CP∞-construction, which recovers the category of Hilbert spaces and quantum operations from the category of Hilbert spaces and bounded linear maps, was defined. Here we show that by a `horizontal categorification' of the CP∞-construction, one can recover the category of all von Neumann algebras and channels (normal unital completely positive maps) from the 2-category [W∗] of von Neumann algebras, bimodules and intertwiners. As an application, we extend Choi's characterisation of extremal channels between finite-dimensional matrix algebras to a characterisation of extremal channels between arbitrary von Neumann algebras.