Alonso-Serrano, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-7841-3724, Schuster, S. orcid.org/0000-0003-1997-0026 and Visser, M. orcid.org/0000-0003-1088-6485 (2024) Emergent time and time travel in quantum physics. Universe, 10 (2). 73. ISSN 2218-1997
Abstract
Entertaining the possibility of time travel will invariably challenge dearly-held concepts in fundamental physics. It becomes relatively easy to construct multiple logical contradictions using differing starting points from various well-established fields of physics. Sometimes, the interpretation is that only a full theory of quantum gravity will be able to settle these logical contradictions. Even then, it remains unclear if the multitude of problems could be overcome. Yet as definitive as this seems to the notion of time travel in physics, such recourse to quantum gravity comes with its own, long-standing challenge to most of these counter-arguments to time travel: These arguments rely on time, while quantum gravity is (in)famously stuck with the problem of time. One attempt to answer this problem within the canonical framework resulted in the Page–Wootters formalism, and its recent gauge-theoretic reinterpretation as an emergent notion of time. Herein, we will begin a program to study toy models implementing the Hamiltonian constraint in quantum theory, with an aim toward understanding what an emergent notion of time can tell us about the (im)possibility of time travel.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | time travel; quantum gravity; minisuperspace; Page–Wootters formalism; emergent time; relational dynamics |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Mathematics and Statistics (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Aug 2024 16:05 |
Last Modified: | 09 Aug 2024 16:05 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI AG |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/universe10020073 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:215539 |