Time-symmetric cosmology and definite quantum measurements.

James B. Hartle

Thomas Guff, Chintalpati Umashankar Shastry, Andrea Rocco

Deriving an arrow of time from time-reversal symmetric microscopic dynamics is a fundamental open problem in many areas of physics, ranging from cosmology, to particle physics, to thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Here we focus on the derivation of the arrow of time in open quantum systems and study precisely how time-reversal symmetry is broken. This derivation involves the Markov approximation applied to a system interacting with an infinite heat bath. We find that the Markov approximation does not imply a violation of time-reversal symmetry. Our results show instead that the time-reversal symmetry is maintained in the derived equations of motion. This imposes a time-symmetric formulation of quantum Brownian motion, Lindblad and Pauli master equations, which hence describe thermalisation that may occur into two opposing time directions. As a consequence, we argue that these dynamics are better described by a time-symmetric definition of Markovianity. Our results may reflect on the formulations of the arrow of time in thermodynamics, cosmology, and quantum mechanics.

Ovidiu Cristinel Stoica

Macroscopic observables allow the recovery of intrinsic dynamics from stationary quantum states. I show that, by interpreting the squared amplitude as the probability density for each definite value of intrinsic time, a curvature emerges in the time direction. For example, from the perspective of intrinsic quantum time, the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker cosmological model emerges from spherically symmetric stationary solutions in four-dimensional Euclidean space, without presupposing gravity. If there is no unique direction of time, curvature emerges in all spacetime dimensions, without presupposing gravity, from the variable amplitude of the stationary wavefunction alone. This opens a new possibility that general relativity or some modification of it emerges from intrinsic time observables.

P. C. W. Davies

James B. Hartle

Sayantan Choudhury

The out-of-time-ordered correlation (OTOC) function is an important new probe in quantum field theory which is treated as a significant measure of random quantum correlations. In this paper, using for the first time the slogan “Cosmology meets Condensed Matter Physics”, we demonstrate a formalism to compute the Cosmological OTOC during the stochastic particle production during inflation and reheating following the canonical quantization technique. In this computation, two dynamical time scales are involved—out of them, at one time scale, the cosmological perturbation variable, and for the other, the canonically conjugate momentum, is defined, which is the strict requirement to define the time scale-separated quantum operators for OTOC and is perfectly consistent with the general definition of OTOC. Most importantly, using the present formalism, not only one can study the quantum correlation during stochastic inflation and reheating, but can also study quantum correlation for any random events in Cosmology. We have studied the possibility of having three different types of correlators, which quantifies the random quantum correlation function out-of-equilibrium. We have also studied the classical limit of the OTOC and checked the consistency with the large time limiting behaviour of the correlation. Finally, we prove that the normalized version of OTOC is completely independent of the choice of the preferred definition of the cosmological perturbation variable.