Related papers: Macroscopic arrow of time from multiscale perspect…

For more than a century, physics has known of a puzzling conflict between the T-asymmetry of thermodynamic phenomena and the T-symmetry of the underlying microphysics on which these phenomena depend. This paper provides a guide to the…

The operational formulations of quantum theory are drastically time oriented. However, to the best of our knowledge, microscopic physics is time-symmetric. We address this tension by showing that the asymmetry of the operational…

Symmetries have a crucial role in today's physics. In this thesis, we are mostly concerned with time reversal invariance (T-symmetry). A physical system is time reversal invariant if its underlying laws are not sensitive to the direction of…

It is often claimed that the fundamental laws of physics are deterministic and time-symmetric and that therefore our experience of the passage of time is an illusion. This paper will critically discuss these claims and show that they are…

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…

Arrows of time - thermodynamical, cosmological, electromagnetic, quantum mechanical, psychological - are basic properties of Nature. For a quantum system-bath closed system the de-correlated initial conditions and no-memory (Markovian)…

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…

The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy production in macroscopic systems is non-negative, reaching zero only at thermodynamic equilibrium. As a corollary, this implies that the state trajectory of macroscopic systems is…

In several previous papers we have argued for a global and non-entropic approach to the problem of the arrow of time, according to which the ''arrow'' is only a metaphorical way of expressing the geometrical time-asymmetry of the universe.…

Physics takes for granted that interacting physical systems with no common history are independent, before their interaction. This principle is time-asymmetric, for no such restriction applies to systems with no common future, after an…

Active matter encompasses systems whose individual consituents dissipate energy to exert propelling forces on their environment. This rapidly developing field harbors a dynamical phenomenology with no counterpart in passive systems. The…

The arrow of time refers to the curious asymmetry that distinguishes the future from the past. Reversing the Arrow of Time argues that there is an intimate link between the symmetries of 'time itself' and time reversal symmetry in physical…

This thesis addresses two major problems in the philosophy of physics. The first is how to identify the minimal physical content of a theory; that is, what features of a theory are truly needed to make predictions, and what can be removed…

The role of the environment initial conditions in the breaking of the time reversal symmetry of effective theories and in generating the soft irreversibility is studied by the help of Closed Time Path formalism. The initial conditions break…

The nature of time has beguiled philosophers for nearly three millennia. There are myriad types of time including cosmological time, biological time, psychological time, physical time, historical time, and even theological time. My brief…

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…

Consider a Hamiltonian system that consists of a slow subsystem S and a fast subsystem F. The autonomous dynamics of S is driven by an effective Hamiltonian, but its thermodynamics is unexpected. We show that a well-defined thermodynamic…

The thermodynamic arrow-of-time problem is thought to be resolved by the observation that our universe initially was---and still is---far from equilibrium. The psychological arrow-of-time problem is often attributed the same resolution, but…

The puzzle of the thermodynamic arrow of time reduces to the question of how the universe could have had lower entropy in the past. I show that no special entropy lowering mechanism (or fluctuation) is necessary. As a consequence of…

A dynamical system is said to be reversible if, given an output, the input can always be recovered in a well-posed manner. Nevertheless, we argue that reversible systems that have a time-reversal symmetry, such as the Nonlinear…