Causality in Hilbert Space

A new formalism, termed the resolution space, is presented within which the theory of causal systems may be unified and extended. The resulting formalism, which is defined as a Hilbert space together with a resolution of the identity, readily includes the commonly encountered function and sequence space causality concepts yet is sufficiently straightforward to allow the various aspects of network and system theory which are dependent on the time parameter to be studied in an operator theoretic context without the detailed structure of a function space. Specific results include additive and multiplicative decomposition theorems for causal operators which naturally extend the “realizable part” and “spectral” decompositions of classical system theory and an integral representation theorem for linear operators on a resolution space. The general theory is illustrated with a number of examples concerning passive “networks”, those including an operator theoretic approach to the passive synthesis problem over an arbitrary resolution space.