English

Semi-classical locality for the non-relativistic path integral in configuration space

Quantum Physics 2017-07-04 v4 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

In a previous paper, we have put forward an interpretation of quantum mechanics based on a non-relativistic, Lagrangian 3+1 formalism of a closed Universe MM, existing on timeless configuration space M\mathcal{M}. However, not much was said there about the role of locality, which was not assumed. This paper is an attempt to fill that gap. To deal with the challenges gauge symmetries may pose to a good definition of locality, I start by demanding symmetries to have an action on M\mathcal{M} so that the quotient wrt the symmetries respects certain factorizations of M\mathcal{M}. These factorizations are algebraic splits of M\mathcal{M} into sub-spaces M=iMOi\mathcal{M}=\bigoplus_i \mathcal{M}_{O_i}-- each factor corresponding to a physical sub-region OiO_i. This deals with kinematic locality, but locality in full can only emerge dynamically, and is not postulated. I describe conditions under which it can be said to have emerged. The dynamics of OO is independent of its complement, MOM-O, if the projection of extremal curves on MM onto the space of extremal curves intrinsic to OO is a surjective map. This roughly corresponds to eiH^tpr\mboxO=pr\mboxOeiH^te^{i\hat{H}t}\circ \mathsf{pr}_{\mbox{O}}= \mathsf{pr}_{\mbox{ O}}\circ e^{i\hat{H}t}, where pr\mboxO:MMOO\mathsf{pr}_{\mbox{ O}}:\mathcal{M}\rightarrow \mathcal{M}_O^{\partial O} is a linear projection. This criterion for locality can be made approximate -- an impossible feat had it been already postulated -- and it can be applied for theories which do not have hyperbolic equations of motion, and/or no fixed causal structure. When two regions are \emph{mutually independent} according to the criterion proposed here, the semi-classical path integral kernel factorizes, showing cluster decomposition which is what one would like to obtain from any definition of locality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1509.05258,
  title  = {Semi-classical locality for the non-relativistic path integral in configuration space},
  author = {Henrique Gomes},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.05258},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

17 pages, 2 figures. v2: added step in the proof of proposition 1, for clarity , v3: extracted toy model for separate paper, inclusion of pre-local definition, and added steps in proof

R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:58:53.963Z