Related papers: Out of Nowhere: Spacetime from causality: causal s…
I present a discussion of some open issues in the philosophy of space-time theories. Emphasis is put on the ontological nature of space and time, the relation between determinism and predictability, the origin of irreversible processes in…
The possibility that a classical space-time and quantum matter cohabit at the deepest level, i.e. the possibility of having a fundamental and not phenomenological semiclassical gravity, is often disregarded for lack of a good candidate…
We begin with a brief summary of issues encountered involving causality in quantum theory, placing careful emphasis on the assumptions involved in results such as the EPR paradox and Bell's inequality. We critique some solutions to the…
The "problem of time" in canonical quantum gravity refers to the difficulties involved in defining a Hilbert space structure on states -- and local observables on this Hilbert space -- for a theory in which the spacetime metric is treated…
This essay presents an accessible introduction to the basic motivations to seek a quantum theory of gravity. It focuses on one approach- loop quantum gravity - as an example of the rich philosophical issues that arise when we try to combine…
A theorem of Hegerfeldt (Instantaneous spreading and Einstein causality in quantum theory, Ann. Phys. Leipzig vol. 7, 716-725 (1998)) establishes, for a class of quantum systems, a dichotomy between those which are permanently localized in…
The evidence for an accelerating Hubble expansion appears to have confirmed the heuristic prediction, from causal set theory, of a fluctuating and ``ever-present'' cosmological term in the Einstein equations. A more concrete…
We explicitly compute the causal structure of the Schwarzschild black hole spacetime, by providing an algorithm to decide if any pair of events is causally related. The primary motivation for this study comes from discrete quantum gravity,…
We address issues on the origin of gravity and the dark energy (or the cosmological constant) from the perspectives of emergent gravity. We discuss how the emergent gravity reveals a noble, radically different picture about the origin of…
Various diagnostics of the emergence of an arrow of time in the bulk description of a holographic theory have been proposed, including the decay of some real time correlation functions and the appearance of type III$_1$ von Neumann algebras…
In fundamental theories that accounts for quantum gravitational effects, the spacetime causal structure is expected to be quantum uncertain. Previous studies of quantum causal structure focused on finite-dimensional systems. Here we present…
Quantum theory is a mathematical formalism to compute probabilities for outcomes happenning in physical experiments. These outcomes constitute events happening in space-time. One of these events represents the fact that a system located in…
We summarize the main ideas behind TGFT condensate cosmology and sketch the technical steps that bring from the fundamental theory to the effective cosmological dynamics. This framework is presented as an explicit illustration of (and…
The nature of time as emergent for a system by separating it from its environment has been put forward by Page and Wootters [D. N. Page and W. K. Wootters, Phys. Rev. D 27, 2885 (1983)] in a quantum mechanical setting neglecting interaction…
Newtonian gravity arises as the nonrelativistic, static, weak-field limit of some Lorentzian spacetime geometry solving the generally covariant Einstein equations for a given matter field configuration. Spacetime geometry has a local…
Many useful concepts for a quantum theory of scattering and decay (like Lippmann-Schwinger kets, purely outgoing boundary conditions, exponentially decaying Gamow vectors, causality) are not well defined in the mathematical frame set by the…
This article reviews a recent work by a couple of colleagues and myself about the shortcomings of the standard explanations of the quantum origin of cosmic structure in the inflationary scenario, and a proposal to address them. The point it…
By considering a new form of dimensional reduction for noncommutative field theory, we show that the signature of spacetime may be changed. In particular, it is demonstrated that a temporal dimension can emerge from a purely Euclidean…
I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the…
Spacetime emergence refers to the notion that classical spacetime "emerges" as an approximate macroscopic entity from a non-spatio-temporal structure present in a more complete theory of interacting fundamental constituents. In this…