Related papers: The universe as an eigenstate: spacetime paths and…
We consider the classical minisuperspace model describing a closed, homogeneous and isotropic Universe, with a positive cosmological constant. Upon canonical quantization, the infinite number of possible operator orderings in the quantum…
The Cosmological Principle states that the universe is both homogeneous and isotropic. This, alone, is not enough to specify the global geometry of the spacetime. If we were able to measure both the Hubble constant and the energy density we…
This paper is the second of two papers devoted to the study of the evolution of the cosmological horizons (particle and event horizons). Specifically, in this paper we consider the extremely general case of an accelerated universe with…
The model of the Universe in this paper uses equations of the unperturbed Keplerian motion. They have been updated, complementied and generalized when the solution of these equations is the characteristic function of a random value from the…
What is the quantum state of the universe? That is the central question of quantum cosmology. This essay describes the place of that quantum state in a final theory governing the regularities exhibited universally by all physical systems in…
Coherent states possess a regularized path integral and gives a natural relation between classical variables and quantum operators. Recent work by Klauder and Whiting has included extended variables, that can be thought of as gauge fields,…
Is there a number for every bit of spacetime, or is spacetime smooth like the real line? The ultimate fate of a quantum theory of gravity might depend on it. The troublesome infinities of quantum gravity can be cured by assuming that…
The present work deals with evolution of the fractal model of the Universe in the background of homogeneous and isotropic FLRW space--time geometry. The cosmic substrum is taken as perfect fluid with barotropic equation of state. A general…
The so-called classical limit of quantum mechanics is generally studied in terms of the decoherence of the state operator that characterizes a system. This is not the only possible approach to decoherence. In previous works we have…
We analyze the origin of the quasiclassical realm from the no-boundary proposal for the universe's quantum state in a class of minisuperspace models. The models assume homogeneous, isotropic, closed spacetime geometries, a single scalar…
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…
Some principles underpinning the running of the Universe are discussed. The most important, the machine principle, states that the Universe is a fully autonomous, self-organizing and self-testing quantum automaton. Continuous space and…
At first sight, an accurate description of the state of the universe appears to require a mind-bogglingly large and perhaps even infinite amount of information, even if we restrict our attention to a small subsystem such as a rabbit. In…
Reference frames are of special importance in physics. They are usually considered to be idealized entities. However, in most situations, e.g. in laboratories, physical processes are described within reference frames constituted by physical…
In light of G\"{o}del's undecidability results (incomplete theorems) for math, quantum indeterminism indicates that physics and the Universe may be indeterministic, incomplete, and open in nature, and therefore demand no single unification…
Quantum creation of the universe is described by the {\em density matrix} defined by the Euclidean path integral. This yields an ensemble of universes -- a cosmological landscape -- in a mixed quasi-thermal state which is shown to be…
Selection of the preferred classical set of states in the process of decoherence -- so important for cosmological considerations -- is discussed with an emphasis on the role of information loss and entropy. {\it Persistence of correlations}…
The identification of physical subsystems in quantum mechanics as compared to classical mechanics poses significant conceptual challenges, especially in the context of quantum gravity. Traditional approaches associate quantum systems with…
We illustrate the crucial role played by decoherence (consistency of quantum histories) in extracting consistent quantum probabilities for alternative histories in quantum cosmology. Specifically, within a Wheeler-DeWitt quantization of a…
Decoherence is the process via which quantum superpositions states are reduced to classical mixtures. Decoherence has been predicted for relativistically accelerated quantum systems, however examples to date have involved restricting the…