Non-invertible symmetries act locally by quantum operations

Non-invertible symmetries of quantum field theories and many-body systems generalize the concept of symmetries by allowing non-invertible operations in addition to more ordinary invertible ones described by groups. The aim of this paper is to point out that these non-invertible symmetries act on local operators by quantum operations, i.e. completely positive maps between density matrices, which form a natural class of operations containing both unitary evolutions and measurements and play an important role in quantum information theory. This observation will be illustrated by the Kramers–Wannier duality of the one-dimensional quantum Ising chain, which is a prototypical example of non-invertible symmetry operations.