Related papers: The universe as an eigenstate: spacetime paths and…
The observable universe is fundamentally inhomogeneous and anisotropic. Quantum description of the generation of these inhomogeneities and anisotropies is ill-understood and unsatisfactory. After providing a brief account of the standard…
These are the author's lectures at the 1992 Les Houches Summer School, "Gravitation and Quantizations". They develop a generalized sum-over-histories quantum mechanics for quantum cosmology that does not require either a preferred notion of…
The possible imprint of quantum decoherence, in the framework of cosmology, is here investigated. Particular attention is paid to the observational fact that entanglement could lead to the interaction of different eras of cosmic evolution.…
The properties of the quantum universe on extremely small spacetime scales are studied in the semi-classical approach to the well-defined quantum model. It is shown that near the initial cosmological singularity point quantum gravity…
We show that the quantum description of measurement based on decoherence fixes the bug in quantum theory discussed in [D. Frauchiger and R. Renner, {\em Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself}, Nat. Comm. {\bf 9},…
The physical processes that determine the properties of our everyday world, and of the wider cosmos, are determined by some key numbers: the 'constants' of micro-physics and the parameters that describe the expanding universe in which we…
There is a persistent state of confusion regarding the account of the quantum origin of the seeds of cosmological structure during inflation. In fact, a recent article (C. Kiefer & D. Polarski, ArXiv: 0810.0087 [astro-ph]) addresses the…
Many macroscopic physical processes are known to occur in a time-directed way despite the apparent time-symmetry of the known fundamental laws. A popular explanation is to postulate an unimaginably atypical state for the early universe -- a…
This paper describes a path integral formulation of the free energy principle. The ensuing account expresses the paths or trajectories that a particle takes as it evolves over time. The main results are a method or principle of least action…
The quantized canonical space-time coordinates of a relativistic point particle are expressed in terms of the elements of a complex Clifford algebra which combines the complex properties of SL(2.C) and quantum mechanics. When the quantum…
Probabilistic Spacetime is a simple generalization of the classical model of spacetime in General Relativity, such that it allows to consider multiple metric field realizations endowed with probabilities. The motivation for such a…
I review the decoherent (or consistent) histories approach to quantum mechanics, due to Griffiths, to Gell-Mann and Hartle, and to Omnes. This is an approach to standard quantum theory specifically designed to apply to genuinely closed…
Even if the luminosity distance as a function of redshift is obtained accurately using, for example, Type Ia supernovae, the equation of state of the Universe cannot be determined uniquely but depends on one free parameter $\Omega_{k0}…
This paper discusses the relation between the decoherent histories approach to quantum mechanics that is based on coarse-grained decoherent histories of a closed system, and the approximate quantum mechanics of measured subsystems, as in…
Three ideas are introduced that when brought together characterize the realistic quasiclassical realms of our quantum universe as particular kinds of sets of alternative coarse-grained histories defined by quasiclassical variables: (1)…
In this paper, I propose a realistic interpretation (RI) of quantum mechanics, that is, an interpretation according to which a particle follows a definite path in spacetime. The path is not deterministic but it is rather a random walk.…
Complex metrics are a double-edged sword: they allow one to replace singular spacetimes, such as those containing a big bang, with regular metrics, yet they can also describe unphysical solutions in which quantum transitions may be more…
Recently, a self-contained trajectory-based formulation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics was developed [Ann. Phys. 315, 505 (2005); Chem. Phys. 370, 4 (2010); J. Chem. Phys. 136, 031102 (2012)], that makes no use of wavefunctions or…
Within the framework of the previously proposed formulation of the quantum theory of gravity in terms of world histories, it was suggested that the universe has its own mass. This quantity is analogous to the mass of a particle in…
The behaviors of one-dimensional quantum random walks are strikingly different from those of classical ones. However, when decoherence is involved, the limiting distributions take on many classical features over time. In this paper, we…