Related papers: Background-Independence
We develop a field-theoretic description of large-scale structure formation by taking the non-relativistic limit of a canonically transformed, real scalar field which is minimally coupled to scalar gravitational perturbations in…
String geometry theory is a candidate of the non-perturbative formulation of string theory. In order to determine the string vacuum, we need to clarify how superstring backgrounds are described in string geometry theory. In this paper, we…
We have considered a Fraisse class of finitely generated ordered real fields with a colour predicate. A predimension map is defined on finite sets and the Fraisse limit of the class is axiomatized by a theory $T$, which is proved to be…
A physical field has an infinite number of degrees of freedom since it has a field value at each location of a continuous space. Therefore, it is impossible to know a field from finite measurements alone and prior information on the field…
The paper discusses from a metaphysical standpoint the nature of the dependence relation underpinning the talk of mutual action between material and spatiotemporal structures in general relativity. It is shown that the standard analyses of…
A scalar field theory is constructed on an energy-momentum background of constant curvature. The generalization of the usual Feynamn rules for the flat geometry follows from the requirement of their covariance. The main result is that the…
Lattice gauge theory with a background gauge field is shown to be renormalizable to all orders of perturbation theory. No additional counterterms are required besides those already needed in the absence of the background field. The argument…
Bayesian networks provide a powerful tool for reasoning about probabilistic causation, used in many areas of science. They are, however, intrinsically classical. In particular, Bayesian networks naturally yield the Bell inequalities.…
The conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics, though it permits a correspondence to classical physics, leaves the exact mechanism of transition unclear. Though this was only of philosophical importance throughout the twentieth…
A central aspect of the cosmological constant problem is to understand why vacuum energy does not gravitate. In order to account for this observation, while allowing for nontrivial dynamics of the quantum vacuum, we motivate a novel…
The Hamilton function is a powerful tool for studying the classical limit of quantum systems, which remains meaningful in background-independent systems. In quantum gravity, it clarifies the physical interpretation of the transitions…
We present a classical conformal field theory on an arbitrary two-dimensional spacetime background. The dynamical object is a space-filling string, and the evolution may be thought as occurring on the manifold of the conformal group. The…
Influence theory is a foundational theory of physics that is not based on traditional empirically defined concepts, such as positions in space and time, mass, energy, or momentum. Instead, the aim is to derive these concepts, and their…
This paper develops a process-based account of scientific explanation that reconceives grounding in terms of stabilisation. Grounding theories capture hierarchical dependence but lack criteria for when explanations remain adequate under…
The dependence of the effective action for gauge theories on the background field obeys an exact identity. We argue that for Abelian theories the Ward identity follows from the more general background field identity. This observation is…
Consistent dynamics which couples classical and quantum degrees of freedom exists, provided it is stochastic. This dynamics is linear in the hybrid state, completely positive and trace preserving. One application of this is to study the…
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
In the complete system of equations of evolution of the classical system of charges and the electromagnetic field generated by them, the field variables are excluded. An exact closed relativistic non-Hamiltonian system of nonlocal kinetic…
QED formulated in prescribed classical background electromagnetic fields is a standard framework for strong-field and laser\textendash matter interactions. It is usually treated as a theory modified by externally imposed fields, obscuring…
Using the background-metric independence for the traceless mode as well as the conformal mode, 4D quantum gravity is described as a quantum field theory defined on a non-dynamical background-metric. The measure then induces an action with 4…