Fock Space Techniques for Stochastic Physics

I’ve been fascinated for a long time about the relation between classical probability theory and quantum mechanics. This story took a strange new turn when people discovered that stochastic Petri nets, good for describing classical probabilistic models of interacting entities, can also be described using ideas from the quantum field theory!

I’ll be talking about this at the online category theory seminar at UNAM, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, on Wednesday October 7th at 18:00 UTC (11 am Pacific Time):

Fock space techniques for stochastic physics

Abstract: Some ideas from quantum theory are beginning to percolate back to classical probability theory. For example, the master equation for a chemical reaction network—also known as a stochastic Petri net—describes particle interactions in a stochastic rather than quantum way. If we look at this equation from the perspective of quantum theory, this formalism turns out to involve creation and annihilation operators, coherent states and other well-known ideas — but with a few big differences.

You can see my talk slides here, watch the talk live on YouTube here:

or see it later recorded on YouTube, probably here.

Some students of mine will also be giving talks in this seminar—on Petri nets and structured cospans.