Related papers: Quantum states and space-time causality
The mechanism of the transition of a dynamical system from quantum to classical mechanics is one of the remaining challenges of quantum theory. Currently, it is considered to occur via decoherence caused by entanglement and/or stochastic…
The class of relativistic spin particle models reveals the `quantization' of parameters already at the classical level. The special parameter values emerge if one requires the maximality of classical global continuous symmetries. The same…
The theories of quantum mechanics and relativity dramatically altered our understanding of the universe ushering in the era of modern physics. Quantum theory deals with objects probabilistically at small scales, whereas relativity deals…
Research in quantum gravity strongly suggests that our world in not fundamentally spatiotemporal, but that spacetime may only emerge in some sense from a non-spatiotemporal structure, as this paper illustrates in the case of causal set…
We discuss a spacetime having the topology of $S^{3}\times\mathbb{R}$ but with a different smoothness structure. The initial state of the cosmos in our model is identified with a wildly embedded 3-sphere (or a fractal space). In previous…
Quantum gravity is expected to be necessary in order to understand situations where classical general relativity breaks down. In particular in cosmology one has to deal with initial singularities, i.e. the fact that the backward evolution…
The difficulties with the measurability of classical space-time distances are considered. We outline the framework of quantum deformations of D=4 space-time symmetries with dimensionfull deformation parameter, and present some recent…
The origin of cosmic structure is widely regarded as quantum, yet the Universe today appears classical. Standard lore attributes this to a "quantum-to-classical" transition on super-horizon scales during inflation. Gravity plays a central…
We derive the quantum states corresponding to classical scalar fields in the representation expanded by the eigenstates of quantum field operators. This allows us to directly observe the spatial entanglement structure of quantum states and…
There is a deep structural link between acausal spacetimes and quantum theory. As a consequence quantum theory may resolve some "paradoxes" of time travel. Conversely, non-time-orientable spacetimes naturally give rise to electric charges…
The degree of freedom of the scalar field in scalar-tensor gravity is employed as "time" to deparametrize the Hamiltonian constraint of the theory. The deparametrized system is then nonperturbatively quantized by the approach of loop…
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…
All existing experimental results are currently interpreted using classical geometry. However, there are theoretical reasons to suspect that at a deeper level, geometry emerges as an approximate macroscopic behavior of a quantum system at…
The relativistic conception of space and time is challenged by the quantum nature of physical observables. It has been known for a long time that Poincar\'e symmetry of field theory can be extended to the larger conformal symmetry. We use…
The consistent histories formalism can be used to describe histories comprised of events across many systems, times, and places, plausibly rich enough to describe our experiences of the classical world; however, many consistent history sets…
We derive quantum kinetic equations for fermions in a homogeneous time-dependent background in presence of decohering collisions, by use of the Schwinger-Keldysh CTP-formalism. The quantum coherence (between particles and antiparticles) is…
We examine the dependence of quantization on global properties of a classical system. Quantization based on local properties may lead to ambiguities and inconsistency between local and global symmetries of a quantum system. Our quantization…
The hypothesis that the causal properties of space-time, as well as other properties of physical systems like unitarity, charge conservation, etc., might be decided by the higher dimensional structure (in particular, higher-dimensional…
Quantum states of gravitational source masses can lead to experimental outcomes that are inconsistent with the predictions of a purely classical field theory of gravity. Environmental decoherence places strict boundary conditions to the…
Effective quantum cosmology is formulated with a realistic global internal time given by the electric vector potential. New possibilities for the quantum behavior of space-time are found, and the high-density regime is shown to be very…