An
orthocomplementation on a bounded lattice is a function that maps each element
a to an "orthocomplement"
a⊥ in such a way that the following axioms are satisfied: ;Complement law:
a⊥ ∨
a = 1 and
a⊥ ∧
a = 0. ;Involution law:
a⊥⊥ =
a. ;Order-reversing: if
a ≤
b then
b⊥ ≤
a⊥. An
orthocomplemented lattice or
ortholattice is a bounded lattice equipped with an orthocomplementation. The lattice of subspaces of an
inner product space, and the
orthogonal complement operation, provides an example of an orthocomplemented lattice that is not, in general, distributive. Image:Smallest_nonmodular_lattice_1.svg|In the pentagon lattice
N5, the node on the right-hand side has two complements. Image:Diamond lattice.svg|The diamond lattice
M3 admits no orthocomplementation. Image:Lattice M4.svg|The lattice
M4 admits 3 orthocomplementations. Image:Hexagon lattice.svg|The hexagon lattice admits a unique orthocomplementation, but it is not uniquely complemented.
Boolean algebras are a special case of orthocomplemented lattices, which in turn are a special case of complemented lattices (with extra structure). The ortholattices are most often used in
quantum logic, where the
closed subspaces of a
separable Hilbert space represent quantum propositions and behave as an orthocomplemented lattice. Orthocomplemented lattices, like Boolean algebras, satisfy
de Morgan's laws: • (
a ∨
b)⊥ =
a⊥ ∧
b⊥ • (
a ∧
b)⊥ =
a⊥ ∨
b⊥. ==Orthomodular lattices==