Related papers: Multi-Vacuum Initial Conditions and the Arrow of T…
We show that the steady-state entropy production rate of a stochastic process is inversely proportional to the minimal time needed to decide on the direction of the arrow of time. Here we apply Wald's sequential probability ratio test to…
Are your perceptions, memories and observational data, a statistical fluctuation out of the thermal equilibrium of the universe, having no correlation with the actual past state of the universe? Arguments are given in the literature for and…
Determining the initial state of the universe is a challenging problem in quantum cosmology and we argue that the issue is intractable if the basic postulates of quantum mechanics are not modified in a nontrivial way. Namely a "standard"…
This article considers the spatially inhomogeneous, non-cutoff Boltzmann equation. We construct a large-data classical solution given bounded, measurable initial data with uniform polynomial decay of mild order in the velocity variable. Our…
A proposal is made for the quantum state of the universe that has an initial state that is macroscopically time symmetric about a homogeneous, isotropic bounce of extremal volume and that at that bounce is microscopically in the ground…
In the framework of Inflationary theory, the assumption that the quantum state of the perturbations is a non-vacuum state leads to a difficulty: non-vacuum initial states imply, in general, a large energy density of inflaton field quanta,…
Estimates of the Higgs and top quark masses, $m_{H} \simeq 125.10 \pm 0.14$ [GeV] and $m_{t} \simeq 172.76 \pm 0.30$ [GeV] based on the experimental results place the Standard Model in the region of the metastable vacuum. A consequence of…
It is brought forward that viable theories of the physical world that have no variable at all that can play the role of time, do not exist; some notion of time is one of the very first ingredients a candidate theory should possess. Almost…
It is generally believed that a cosmological arrow of time must be associated with entropy production. Indeed, in his seminal work on cyclic cosmology, Tolman introduced a viscous fluid in order to make successive expansion/contraction…
At the minisuperspace level of homogeneous models, the bare probability for a classical universe has a huge peak at small universes for the Hartle-Hawking `no-boundary' wavefunction, in contrast to the suppression at small universes for the…
I examine some non-anthropic approaches to the string landscape. These approaches are based on finding the initial conditions of the universe using the wavefunction of the multiverse to select the most probable vacuum out of this landscape.…
We examine the renormalization of an effective theory description of a general initial state set in an isotropically expanding space-time, which is done to understand how to include the effects of new physics in the calculation of the…
We investigate the origin of the arrow of time in quantum mechanics in the context of quantum cosmology. The ``Copenhagen'' quantum mechanics of measured subsystems incorporates a fundamental arrow of time. Extending discussions of…
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…
It is widely believed that special initial conditions must be imposed on any time-symmetric law if its solutions are to exhibit behavior of any kind that defines an `arrow of time'. We show that this is not so. The simplest non-trivial…
We discuss how, in a Universe restricted to the causal region connected to the observer, General Relativity implies the quantum nature of physical phenomena and directly leads to a string theory scenario, whose dynamics is ruled by a…
We discuss the arrow of time in terms of the increase of correlations between the system and its environment. Here we show that the existence of the arrow of time, based on deleting correlations, requires a strict absence of initial…
We study analytically the role of initial conditions in nonequilibrium quantum dynamics considering the one-dimensional ferromagnets in the regime of spontaneously broken symmetry. We analyze the expectation value of local operators for the…
The initial condition problem of inflation is examined from the perspective of both spacetime embedding and scalar field dynamics. The spacetime embedding problem is solved for arbitrary initial spatial curvature Omega, which generalizes…
Living systems are fundamentally irreversible, breaking detailed balance and establishing an arrow of time. But how does the evident arrow of time for a whole system arise from the interactions among its multiple elements? We show that the…