Related papers: The Global Problem of Time
The recently introduced consistent discrete lattice formulation of canonical general relativity produces a discrete theory that is constraint-free. This immediately allows to overcome several of the traditional obstacles posed by the…
"Time" has different meanings in classical general relativity and in quantum theory. While all choices of a time function yield the same local classical geometries, quantum theories built on different time functions are not unitarily…
The nature of cosmic time is illuminated using Hamilton-Jacobi theory for general relativity. For problems of interest to cosmology, one may solve for the phase of the wavefunctional by using a line integral in superspace. Each contour of…
A crucial step in the history of General Relativity was Einstein's adoption of the principle of general covariance which demands a coordinate independent formulation for our spacetime theories. General covariance helps us to disentangle a…
Diffeomorphism-induced symmetry transformations and time evolution are distinct operations in generally covariant theories formulated in phase space. Time is not frozen. Diffeomorphism invariants are consequently not necessarily constants…
We show that if space is compact, then trajectories cannot be defined in the framework of quantum Hamilton--Jacobi equation. The starting point is the simple observation that when the energy is quantized it is not possible to make…
An asymmetry exists between time and space in the sense that physical systems inevitably evolve over time whereas there is no corresponding ubiquitous translation over space. The asymmetry, which is presumed to be elemental, is represented…
Cosymplectic geometry has been proven to be a very useful geometric background to describe time-dependent Hamiltonian dynamics. In this work, we address the globalization problem of locally cosymplectic Hamiltonian dynamics that failed to…
In complex general relativity, Lorentzian space-time is replaced by a four-complex-dimensional complex-Riemannian manifold, with holomorphic connection and holomorphic curvature tensor. A multisymplectic analysis shows that the Hamiltonian…
We study time-reversal symmetry in $(2+1)$D abelian bosonic topological phases. Time-reversal anomalies in such systems are classified by $\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases in $(3+1)$D, and can be…
A cosmological model with two global internal times shows that time reparameterization invariance, and therefore covariance, is not guaranteed by deparameterization. In particular, it is impossible to derive proper-time effective equations…
The Hamiltonian approach to cosmological perturbations in general relativity in finite space-time is developed, where a cosmological scale factor is identified with spatial averaging the metric determinant logarithm. This identification…
In general relativity, the notion of mass and other conserved quantities at spatial infinity can be defined in a natural way via the Hamiltonian framework: Each conserved quantity is associated with an asymptotic symmetry and the value of…
The covariant phase space technique is a powerful formalism for understanding the Hamiltonian description of covariant field theories. However, applications of this technique to problems involving subregions, such as the exterior of a black…
The $\kappa$-Minkoswki space-time provides a quantum noncommutative-deformation of the usual Minkowski space-time. However, a notion of causality is difficult to be defined in such a space with noncommutative time. In this paper, we define…
In the Hamiltonian formulation, it is not a priori clear whether a symmetric configuration will keep its symmetry during evolution. In this paper, we give precise requirements of when this is the case and propose a symmetry restriction to…
The problem of classifying boundary points of space-time, for example singularities, regular points and points at infinity, is an unexpectedly subtle one. Due to the fact that whether or not two boundary points are identified or even…
Einstein's dream of describing elementary particles as solutions of a classical field theory is severely limited by our current understanding of Nature. Quantum theory is inconsistent with any local realistic theory such as evolving…
In this paper I argue that the fundamental aspect of our notion of time is that it defines an order relation, be it a total order relation between configurations of the world or just a partial order relation between events. This position is…
Topological gravity is the reduction of Einstein's theory to spacetimes with vanishing curvature, but with global degrees of freedom related to the topology of the universe. We present an exact Hamiltonian lattice theory for topological…