Related papers: Physical Coherence and Time's Emergence
We argue that semiclassical gravity can be made consistent if quantum systems source gravity only when they participate in non-gravitational interactions that lead to environment-induced decoherence. Outside such decoherence-based events,…
I take non-locality to be the Michaelson Morley experiment of the 21st Century, assume its universal validity, and try to derive its consequences. Spacetime, with its locality, cannot be fundamental, but emergent from entangled coherent…
We investigate the meaning of gravity-induced decoherence in quantum theory, known as `intrinsic' or `fundamental' decoherence in the literature. We explore a range of issues relevant to this problem, including the meaning of modified…
We explain how quantum gravity can be defined by quantizing spacetime itself. A pinpoint is that the gravitational constant G = L_P^2 whose physical dimension is of (length)^2 in natural unit introduces a symplectic structure of spacetime…
The intuitive classical space-time picture breaks down in quantum gravity, which makes a comparison and the development of semiclassical techniques quite complicated. Using ingredients of the group averaging method to solve constraints one…
If gravity respects quantum mechanics, it is important to identify the essential postulates of a quantum framework capable of incorporating gravitational phenomena. Such a construct likely requires elimination or modification of some of the…
In thermodynamics, quantum coherences - superpositions between energy eigenstates - behave in distinctly nonclassical ways. Recently mathematical frameworks have emerged to account for these features and have provided a range of novel…
This paper relates both to the metaphysics of probability and to the physics of time asymmetry. Using the formalism of decoherent histories, it investigates whether intuitions about intrinsic time directedness that are often associated with…
We give a first principles derivation of a master equation for the evolution of a quantum matter field in a linearly perturbed Minkowski spacetime, based solely on quantum field theory and general relativity. We make no additional…
Quantum gravity (or quantum spacetime) is to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single theoretical framework and presented as the most important open puzzle in fundamental physics. The development of a microscopic theory…
We discuss the relational strategy to solve the problem of time in quantum gravity and different ways in which it could be implemented, pointing out in particular the fundamentally new dimension that the problem takes in a quantum gravity…
I explain in what sense the structure of space and time is probably vague or indefinite, a notion I define. This leads to the mathematical representation of location in space and time by a vague interval. From this, a principle of…
Quantum gravity has become a fertile interface between gravitational physics and quantum many-body physics, with its double goal of identifying the microscopic constituents of the universe and their fundamental dynamics, and of…
Time has been an elusive concept to grasp. Although we do not yet understand it properly, there has been advances made in regards to how we can explain it. One such advance is the Page-Wootters mechanism. In this mechanism time is seen as…
We give a short account of the quantisation of the Szekeres spacetime by considering the symmetries of a reduced action principle. This is an alternative approach than the one followed in the literature for the study of inhomogeneities,…
Familiar textbook quantum mechanics assumes a fixed background spacetime to define states on spacelike surfaces and their unitary evolution between them. Quantum theory has changed as our conceptions of space and time have evolved. But…
In quantum mechanics time usually appears as classical parameter which means that it is treated as being essentially different from spatial coordinates that are represented by operators. On the other hand, relativity theory demands to treat…
Preparing general relativity for quantization in the Hamiltonian approach leads to the `problem of time,' rendering the world fundamentally timeless. One proposed solution is the `thermal time hypothesis,' which defines time in terms of…
We present a scenario, how time could emerge in the framework of Weak Quantum Theory. In a process, similar to the emergence of time in quantum cosmology, time arises after an epistemic split of the unus mundus as a quality of the…
A number of recent proposals for a quantum theory of gravity are based on the idea that spacetime geometry and gravity are derivative concepts and only apply at an approximate level. There are two fundamental challenges to any such…