English

Unitarity of Quantum Theory and Closed Time-Like Curves

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-11-26 v3 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

Interacting quantum fields on spacetimes containing regions of closed timelike curves (CTCs) are subject to a non-unitary evolution XX. Recently, a prescription has been proposed, which restores unitarity of the evolution by modifying the inner product on the final Hilbert space. We give a rigorous description of this proposal and note an operational problem which arises when one considers the composition of two or more non-unitary evolutions. We propose an alternative method by which unitarity of the evolution may be regained, by extending XX to a unitary evolution on a larger (possibly indefinite) inner product space. The proposal removes the ambiguity noted by Jacobson in assigning expectation values to observables localised in regions spacelike separated from the CTC region. We comment on the physical significance of the possible indefiniteness of the inner product introduced in our proposal.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9409156,
  title  = {Unitarity of Quantum Theory and Closed Time-Like Curves},
  author = {C. J. Fewster and C. G. Wells},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9409156},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

13 pages, LaTeX. Final revised paper to be published in Phys Rev D. Some changes are made to expand our discussion of Anderson's Proposal for restoring unitarity