Related papers: Causally pathological spacetimes are physically re…
It is shown that any two-dimensional spacetimes with compact Cauchy surfaces can be causally isomorphically imbedded into the two-dimensional Einstein's static universe. Also, it is shown that any two-dimensional globally hyperbolic…
The difficulty of explaining non-local correlations in a fixed causal structure sheds new light on the old debate on whether space and time are to be seen as fundamental. Refraining from assuming space-time as given a priori has a number of…
A two boundary quantum mechanics without time ordered causal structure is advocated as consistent theory. The apparent causal structure of usual "near future" macroscopic phenomena is attributed to a cosmological asymmetry and to rules…
I describe some phenomenological contexts in which it is possible to investigate effects induced by (string-motivated) canonical noncommutative spacetime. Due to the peculiar structure of the theory the usual criteria adopted for the choice…
A physical theory of experiments carried out in a space-time region can accommodate a detector localized in another space-like separated region, in three, not necessarily exclusive, ways: 1) the detector formally collapses physical states…
It has long been known that strings wound around incontractible cycles can play a vital role in cosmology. In particular, in a spacetime with toroidal spatial hypersurfaces, the dynamics of the winding modes may help yield three large…
Enforcing the spacetime of supermassive cosmic strings to satisfy the symmetry of a gravitational topological defect, that is a spacetime kink, it is shown that the energy of these strings becomes quantized so that only defects whose…
A connection between non-perturbative formulations of quantum gravity and perturbative string theory is exhibited, based on a formulation of the non-perturbative dynamics due to Markopoulou. In this formulation the dynamics of spin network…
String theory, as a theory containing quantum gravity, is usually thought to require more dimensions of spacetime than the usual 3+1. Here I argue on physical grounds that needing extra dimensions for strings may well be an artefact of…
No Hopf-Rinow Theorem is possible in Lorentzian Geometry. Nonetheless, we prove that a spacetime is globally hyperbolic if and only if it is metrically complete with respect to the null distance of a time function. Our approach is based on…
The Cauchy slicings for globally hyperbolic spacetimes and their relation with the causal boundary are surveyed and revisited, starting at the seminal conformal boundary constructions by R. Penrose. Our study covers: (1) adaptive…
We illustrate and emphasize the relevance of hyperbolic theories of dissipation in different physical scenarios. Particular attention is paid to self-gravitating systems where the relaxation time may become large enough as to require a…
A new type of singularity theorem, based on spatial averages of physical quantities, is presented and discussed. Alternatively, the results inform us of when a spacetime can be singularity-free. This theorem provides a decisive…
We explore the description of bulk causal structure in a dual field theory. We observe that in the spacetime dual to a spacelike non-commutative field theory, the causal structure in the boundary directions is modified asymptotically. We…
From correlations in measurement outcomes alone, can two otherwise isolated parties establish whether such correlations are atemporal? That is, can they rule out that they have been given the same system at two different times? Classical…
It is well-known that if one assumes quantum theory to hold locally, then processes with indefinite causal order and cyclic causal structures become feasible. Here, we study qualitative limitations on causal structures and correlations…
In this paper, we argue that spacetime in causal fermion systems can be understood as the web of correlations of a many-body quantum system.This argument highlights the fact that causal fermion systems is a completely relational theory. We…
It is shown that the space of null geodesics of a causally simple Lorentzian manifold is Hausdorff if it admits an open conformal embedding into a globally hyperbolic spacetime. This provides an obstruction to conformal embeddings of…
The implications of string theory for understanding the dimension of uncompactified spacetime are investigated. Using recent ideas in string cosmology, a new model is proposed to explain why three spatial dimensions grew large. Unlike the…
Theories of quantum gravity generically presuppose or predict that the reality underlying relativistic spacetimes they are describing is significantly non-spatiotemporal. On pain of empirical incoherence, approaches to quantum gravity must…