Related papers: Decoherence Caused by Topology in a Time-Machine S…
The fundamental dynamics of quantum particles is neutral with respect to the arrow of time. And yet, our experiments are not: we observe quantum systems evolving from the past to the future, but not the other way round. A fundamental…
In general relativity, the description of spacetime relies on idealised rods and clocks, which identify a reference frame. In any concrete scenario, reference frames are associated to physical systems, which are ultimately quantum in…
There has been considerable interest over the past years in investigating the role of gravity in quantum phenomenon such as entanglement and decoherence. In particular, gravitational time dilation is believed to decohere superpositions of…
The meaning of time asymmetry in quantum physics is discussed. On the basis of a mathematical theorem, the Stone--von Neumann theorem, the solutions of the dynamical equations, the Schr\"odinger equation (1) for states or the Heisenberg…
We consider N identical oscillators coupled to a single environment and show that the conditions for the existence of decoherence free subspaces are degeneracy of the oscillator frequencies and separability of the coupling with the…
In this note we demonstrate that a quantum-like interference picture could appear as a statistical effect of interference of deterministic particles, i.e. particles that have trajectories and obey deterministic equations, if one introduces…
Quantum non-local correlations and the acausal, spooky action at a distance suggest a discord between quantum theory and special relativity. We propose a resolution for this discord by first observing that there is a problem of time in…
Path integral formulation of quantum mechanics defines the wavefunction associated with a particle as a sum of phase-factors, which are periodic functions of classical action. In the present article, this periodicity is shown to impart the…
In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, path integrals are normally derived from the Schroedinger equation. This assumes the two formalisms are equivalent. Since time plays a very different role in the Schroedinger equation and in path…
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 derive quantum kinetic equations for scalar fields undergoing coherent evolution either in time (coherent particle production) or in space (quantum reflection). Our central finding is that in systems with certain space-time symmetries,…
The spin-statistics connection, quantum gravity and other physical considerations suggest that classical space-time topology is not an immutable attribute and can change in quantum physics. The implementation of topology change using…
Physical laws for elementary particles can be described by the quantum dynamics equation given a Hamiltonian. The solution are probability amplitudes in Hilbert space that evolve over time. A probability density function over position and…
A single mechanism, endemic to the standard model of physics, is proposed to explain wavefunction collapse, classical motion, dissipation, equilibration, and the transition from pure quantum mechanics through open system decoherence to the…
Topological phases are enriched in non-equilibrium open systems effectively described by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. While several properties unique to non-Hermitian topological systems were uncovered, the fundamental role of symmetry in…
Nonequilibrium states of closed quantum many-body systems defy a thermodynamic description. As a consequence, constraints such as the principle of equal a priori probabilities in the microcanonical ensemble can be relaxed, which can lead to…
We construct quantum evolution operators on the space of states, that realize the metaplectic representation of the modular group SL(2,Z_2^n). This representation acts in a natural way on the coordinates of the non-commutative 2-torus and…
We discuss the various manifestations of quantum decoherence in the forms of dephasing, entanglement with the environment, and revelation of "which-path" information. As a specific example, we consider an electron interference experiment.…
A framework analogous to path integrals in quantum physics is set up for abstract dynamical systems in a W*-algebraic setting. We consider spaces of evolutions, defined in a specific way, of a W*-algebra A as an analogue of spaces of…
The mathematical similarities between non-relativistic wavefunction propagation in quantum mechanics and image propagation in scalar diffraction theory are used to develop a novel understanding of time and paths through spacetime as a…