Related papers: Topology change and context dependence
The role of topology in elementary quantum physics is discussed in detail. It is argued that attributes of classical spatial topology emerge from properties of state vectors with suitably smooth time evolution. Equivalently, they emerge…
The topology of orientable (2 + 1)d spacetimes can be captured by certain lumps of non-trivial topology called topological geons. They are the topological analogues of conventional solitons. We give a description of topological geons where…
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…
The relation between thermodynamic phase transitions in classical systems and topology changes in their state space is discussed for systems in which equivalence of statistical ensembles does not hold. As an example, the spherical model…
If the block universe view is correct, the future and the past have similar status and one would expect physical theories to involve final as well as initial boundary conditions. A plausible consistency condition between the initial and…
In the context of LLM geometries, we show that superpositions of classical coherent states of trivial topology can give rise to new classical limits where the topology of spacetime has changed. We argue that this phenomenon implies that…
Topological phase transitions track changes in topological properties of a system and occur in real materials as well as quantum engineered systems, all of which differ greatly in terms of dimensionality, symmetries, interactions, and…
Contextuality is a central feature of quantum theory, traditionally understood as the impossibility of reproducing quantum measurement statistics using noncontextual ontological models. We study classical ontological descriptions in which a…
Quantum contextuality, a fundamental feature distinguishing quantum theory from classical models, is investigated via algebraic and topological structures inherent in modular tensor categories. This work rigorously demonstrates that braid…
Realist interpretations of quantum mechanics presuppose the existence of elements of reality that are independent of the actions used to reveal them. Such a view is challenged by several no-go theorems that show quantum correlations cannot…
The transition from classical to quantum mechanics rests on the recognition that the structure of information is not what we thought it was: there are operational, i.e., phenomenal, probabilistic correlations that lie outside the polytope…
Topology forms a cornerstone in modern condensed matter and statistical physics, offering a new framework to classify the phases and phase transitions beyond the traditional Landau paradigm. However, it is widely believed that topological…
Classical limits of quantum systems are shown to lead to different conceptions of spaces different from the classical one underlying the process of quantization of such systems. The accent is put in situations where traces of…
It is shown that certain structures in classical General Relativity can give rise to non-classical logic, normally associated with Quantum Mechanics. A 4-geon model of an elementary particle is proposed which is asymptotically flat,…
Familiar formulations of classical and quantum mechanics are shown to follow from a general theory of mechanics based on pure states with an intrinsic probability structure. This theory is developed to the stage where theorems from quantum…
Quantum non-demolition measurements facilitate various quantum technologies, including quantum communication. Notably, their operational structure can be replicated by a classical model--referred to as a noncontextual model--making it…
We review the mechanism in quantum gravity whereby topological geons, particles made from non-trivial spatial topology, are endowed with nontrivial spin and statistics. In a theory without topology change there is no obstruction to…
A review is given of recent work on topology changing solutions to the first order form of general relativity. These solutions have metrics which are smooth everywhere, invertible almost everywhere, and have bounded curvature. The…
The gap between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics has an important interpretive implication: the Universe must have an irreducible fundamental level, which determines the properties of matter at higher levels of organization. We…
Results of measurements give legitimacy to a physical theory. What if acquiring these results in the first place necessitates what the same theory considers to be an interaction? In this note, we assume that theories account for…