The Theory of Causal Fermion Systems

What is a Causal Fermion System?

This measure plays a central role in the CFS framework. If you want to gain a deeper understanding of the mathematical structure of the CFS framework, it is necessary to have at least some familiarity with the basic concepts of measure theory. If you just care about the physics in the continuum limit, you can mostly do without.
Let us collect these structures in a formal definition for more clarity:

Definition (Causal fermion system) Let ${(\H, \la .|\,. \ra_\H)}$ be a Hilbert space. Given a parameter $n \in \mathbb{N}$ (“spin dimension”) we let  ${\F}$ be the set of all $x \in \Lin(\H)$  with the properties:

•  $x$ is self-adjoint and has finite rank
• $x$ has at most $n$ positive and at most $n$ negative eigenvalues.

Finally, we let $\rho$ be a measure on $\F$ (“universal measure”).

A technical motivation for the choice of the subset $\F$ can be found  here. The crucial conceptional point is that the set of regular events (self-adjoint operators with exactly $n$ positive and $n$ negative eigenvalues) is a manifold.
Some interesting observations about $\F$: Clearly, the operators in $\F$ are of a very special form (finite rank, bounds on number of positive and negative eigenvalues). Nevertheless, the algebra generated by $\F$ lies dense in $\Lin(\H)$. This means that we can construct every operator in $\Lin(\H)$ (in particularly any self-adjoint operator) from elements in $\F$ by approximation with linear combinations of products of operators in $\F$. This is worth mentioning because, traditionally, observables of a quantum mechanical systems are considered to be selfadjoint linear operators on the Hilbert space that characterizes the physical system.
From now on, when we talk about a “causal fermion system” we always refer to a triple ${(\rho, \F, \H)}$. It is worth mentioning that the universal measure $\rho$ is not necessarily supported on all of $\F$. The elements of $\F$ where the measure is non-vanishing are said to be the events which are realized in a particular physical system. The collection of all events that are realized in a physical system, i.e. the support of the measure $\rho$ in $\F$ is called the “spacetime” ${M:= \text{supp} \rho}$.
Note, at this point in the discussion, you have to take the suggestive names of the CFS structures at face value. We hope the motivation why these structures are labelled the way they are, will become clear in the discussion of the continuum limit.

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