Related papers: Leibnizian relationalism for general relativistic …
This paper elaborates on relationalism about space and time as motivated by a minimalist ontology of the physical world: there are only matter points that are individuated by the distance relations among them, with these relations changing.…
In a purely relational theory there exists a tension between the relational character of the theory and the existence of quantities like distance and duration. We review this issue in the context of the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence. We…
Quantum theory can be understood as pointing to an ontology of relations. I observe that this reading of quantum mechanics is supported by the ubiquity of relationality in contemporary fundamental physics, including in classical mechanics,…
The Hamiltonian for a system of relativistic bodies interacting by their gravitational field is found in the post-Minkowskian approximation, including all terms linear in the gravitational constant. It is given in a surprisingly simple…
It is shown that certain aspects of gravitation may be described using a relativistic action-at-a-distance formulation. The equations of motion of the model presented are invariant under Lorentz transformations and agree with the equations…
The Hamiltonian for a system of relativistic bodies interacting by their gravitational field is found in the post-Minkowskian approximation, including all terms linear in the gravitational constant. It is given in a surprisingly simple…
We study a general relativistic particle action obtained by incorporating the Hamiltonian constraints into the formalism as a toy model for general relativity and string theory. We show how a non-vanishing cosmological constant and a…
The interaction of (linearized) gravitation with matter is studied in the causal approach up to the second order of perturbation theory. We consider the generic case and prove that gravitation is universal in the sense that the existence of…
I discuss the ontological assumptions and implications of General Relativity. I maintain that General Relativity is a theory about gravitational fields, not about space-time. The latter is a more basic ontological category, that emerges…
In this note we discuss the invariance under general changes of reference frame of all the physical predictions of particle detector models in quantum field theory in general and, in particular, of those used in quantum optics to model…
We formulate Bohmian mechanics (BM) such that the main objects of concern are macroscopic phenomena, while microscopic particle trajectories only play an auxiliary role. Such a formulation makes it easy to understand why BM always makes the…
Absolute space is eliminated from the body of mechanics by gauging translations and rotations in the Lagrangian of a classical system. The procedure implies the addition of compensating terms to the kinetic energy, in such a way that the…
Relational mechanics is a reformulation of mechanics (classical or quantum) for which space is relational. This means that the configuration of an $N$-particle system is a shape, which is what remains when the effects of rotations,…
We explore the idea that gravitational interaction can be described by instantaneous inter-particle potentials. This idea is in full accord with relativistic quantum theory. In particular, it resembles the ``dressed particle'' approach to…
Relativistic systems of particles interacting pairwise at a distance (interactions not mediated by fields) in flat spacetime are studied. It is assumed that the interactions propagate at the speed of light in vacuum and that all masses are…
Relational mechanics is a gauge theory of classical mechanics whose laws do not govern the motion of individual particles but the evolution of the distances between particles. Its formulation gives a satisfactory answer to Leibniz's and…
The definition of a reference frame in General Relativity is achieved through the construction of a congruence of time-like world-lines. In this framework, splitting techniques enable us to express physical phenomena in analogy with Special…
In Minkowski spacetime, we consider an isolated system made of two pointlike bodies interacting at a distance, in the nonradiative approximation. Our framework is the covariant and a priori Hamiltonian formalism of "predictive relativistic…
This article contributes to the debate of the meaning of relationalism and background independence, which has remained of interest in theoretical physics from Newton versus Leibniz through to foundational issues for today's leading…
We remind how relationality arises as the core insight of general-relativistic gauge field theories from the articulation of the generalised hole and point-coincidence arguments. Hence, a compelling case for a manifestly relational…