Related papers: Can the Arrow of Time be understood from Quantum C…
This paper presents a unified formulation of the origin of the arrow of time in classical and quantum mechanics. We begin with a mechanical analysis of a one-dimensional three-particle system, which provides a concrete example in which…
In both thermodynamics and quantum mechanics the arrow of time is characterized by the statistical likelihood of physical processes. We characterize this arrow of time for the continuous quantum measurement dynamics of a superconducting…
We advance a new viewpoint on the connection between the the thermodynamical and cosmological arrows of time, which can be traced via the properties of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. We show that in the…
The second law of thermodynamics is asymmetric with respect to time as it says that the entropy of the universe must have been lower in the past and will be higher in the future. How this time-asymmetric law arises from the time-symmetric…
The recent surge of interest in the origin of the temporal asymmetry of thermodynamical systems (including the accessible part of the universe itself) put forward two possible explanatory approaches to this age-old problem. Hereby we show…
Fisher's arrow of `time' in a cosmological phase space defined as in quantum optics (i.e., whose points are coherent states) is introduced as follows. Assuming that the phase space evolution of the universe starts from an initial squeezed…
If one introduces causality into quantum cosmology, then the prescription for the no-boundary universe should be revised. We show that the thermodymanic arrow of time associated with the perturbation modes should be reversed at the maximum…
Microscopic physical laws are time-symmetric, hence, a priori there exists no preferential temporal direction. However, the second law of thermodynamics allows one to associate the "forward" temporal direction to a positive variation of the…
Statistical physics cannot explain why a thermodynamic arrow of time exists, unless one postulates very special and unnatural initial conditions. Yet, we argue that statistical physics can explain why the thermodynamic arrow of time is…
Causality underpins all logical reasoning. However, the causal structure in quantum processes can be far from intuitive, often differing from its classical counterpart in relativity, which is defined by the light cone. In particular, in…
In a quantum universe with a strong arrow of time, it is standard to postulate that the initial wave function started in a particular macrostate--the special low-entropy macrostate selected by the Past Hypothesis. Moreover, there is an…
In [Sch05a], it is argued that Boltzmann's intuition, that the psychological arrow of time is necessarily aligned with the thermodynamic arrow, is correct. Schulman gives an explicit physical mechanism for this connection, based on the…
In this paper it is presented the model of a multiverse made up of entangled pairs of universes. The arrow of time obtained from the principles of thermodynamics and the arrow of time given by the thermodynamics of entanglement for single…
Two major apparently unrelated problems, that of the origin of time in the universe associated with quantum gravity and to the entropy in de Sitter cosmological models, are found to have their origin in a single physical phenomenon: the…
We present a novel solution to the low entropy and arrow of time puzzles of the initial state of the Universe. Our approach derives from the physics of a specific generalization of Matrix theory put forth in earlier work as the basis for a…
One of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics is what gives rise to the arrow of time. Since the fundamental dynamical laws of physics are (essentially) symmetric in time, the explanation for time's arrow must come from…
The nature of time in quantum mechanics is closely related to the use of a complex, rather than say real, Hilbert space. This becomes particularly clear when considering quantum field theory in time dependent backgrounds, such as in…
It is widely accepted that temporal asymmetry is largely a cosmological problem; the task of explaining temporal asymmetry reduces in the main to that of explaining an aspect of the condition of the early universe. However, cosmologists who…
We investigate three aspects of the supposed problem of time: The disagreement between the treatments of time in general relativity and quantum theory, the problem of recovering time from within an isolated Universe and the prevalence of a…
A theory is developed which attempts to reconcile the measurements of nonlocal quantum observables with special relativity and quantum mechanics. The collapse of a wave function, which coincides with a nonlocal measurement by some…