Contact Jonathan.duchesne@hotmail.com 418-953-0596 This thesis presents Time–Decoherence Gravity (TDG), a unified theoretical framework in which spacetime geometry, gravitation, and the physical flow of time arise from fundamental quantum decoherence. Rather than treating decoherence as an environmental or effective process, TDG builds on a covariant extension of the Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan–Lindblad (GKSL) equation, where four directional Lindblad operators encode intrinsic, irreversible information loss. These operators define a “decoherence tensor,” which acts both as a memory of quantum irreversibility and as the generator of emergent spacetime geometry through a nonlinear constitutive relation. The theory provides a coherent gravitational collapse mechanism based on the incompatibility of decoherence patterns across quantum branches. This leads to an intrinsic “decoherence energy,” whose magnitude determines the collapse timescale, extending and generalizing the well-known Penrose–Diósi models. TDG predicts a smooth transition from persistent microscopic coherence to rapid macroscopic collapse. At cosmological scales, a homogeneous decoherence tensor naturally generates modified Friedmann dynamics, early-universe stiff-fluid behavior, and late-time acceleration without requiring a fine-tuned cosmological constant. Black-hole entropy emerges as a saturation of decoherence memory at the horizon, while Hawking radiation appears as the dissipative relaxation of this saturation. The theory also predicts short-range deviations from Newtonian gravity and a universal spectrum of fundamental gravitational noise. Finally, TDG offers several experimentally testable signatures involving optical clocks, mesoscopic interferometry, short-range force measurements, and correlated phase noise in global timing networks. The framework is internally consistent, falsifiable, and provides a novel and unified approach to the relationship between quantum mechanics, gravity, and the arrow of time.
Contact Jonathan.duchesne@hotmail.com 418-953-0596 This thesis presents Time–Decoherence Gravity (TDG), a unified theoretical framework in which spacetime geometry, gravitation, and the physical flow of time arise from fundamental quantum decoherence. Rather than treating decoherence as an environmental or effective process, TDG builds on a covariant extension of the Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan–Lindblad (GKSL) equation, where four directional Lindblad operators encode intrinsic, irreversible information loss. These operators define a “decoherence tensor,” which acts both as a memory of quantum irreversibility and as the generator of emergent spacetime geometry through a nonlinear constitutive relation. The theory provides a coherent gravitational collapse mechanism based on the incompatibility of decoherence patterns across quantum branches. This leads to an intrinsic “decoherence energy,” whose magnitude determines the collapse timescale, extending and generalizing the well-known Penrose–Diósi models. TDG predicts a smooth transition from persistent microscopic coherence to rapid macroscopic collapse. At cosmological scales, a homogeneous decoherence tensor naturally generates modified Friedmann dynamics, early-universe stiff-fluid behavior, and late-time acceleration without requiring a fine-tuned cosmological constant. Black-hole entropy emerges as a saturation of decoherence memory at the horizon, while Hawking radiation appears as the dissipative relaxation of this saturation. The theory also predicts short-range deviations from Newtonian gravity and a universal spectrum of fundamental gravitational noise. Finally, TDG offers several experimentally testable signatures involving optical clocks, mesoscopic interferometry, short-range force measurements, and correlated phase noise in global timing networks. The framework is internally consistent, falsifiable, and provides a novel and unified approach to the relationship between quantum mechanics, gravity, and the arrow of time.
Contact: Jonathan.duchesne@hotmail.com FinalTDG: Full Mathematical proposition. AddTDG22: Natural Add-ons TDGStressTest: Stress Test results TDGEX: Experimental Protocol TDGpaper: Abstract Temporal Decoherence Geometry (TDG) is a conservative theoretical framework that systematically explores a possible connection between quantum decoherence, weak-field gravity, and an emergent notion of time, while remaining strictly within a GKSL (Lindblad) open quantum dynamics, i.e. Markovian and completely positive, with no ad hoc collapse mechanism. The central idea of TDG is to take seriously the structure of decoherence of an open quantum system and promote it to an effective geometric object: a decoherence tensor Gamma_{mu nu}, constructed from a Lindblad generator, is introduced as the primary source of a weak-field gravitational potential and an emergent time defined from local decoherence rates. The framework is deliberately minimalist in its assumptions: weak-field regime, standard quantum mechanics (no modification of the Schrödinger equation or the GKSL structure), no exotic measurement postulates. This new “DOI version” collects and organises the following elements: A mathematical core in which Gamma_{mu nu} is derived from a GKSL generator (Lindbladian), a gradient-flow–type evolution drives Gamma_{mu nu} towards a quantity proportional to the usual energy-momentum tensor T_{mu nu}, an emergent time scalar T(x) is defined from the local decoherence rate lambda(x), under explicit integrability conditions, an effective weak-field gravitational potential Phi_TDG is associated with this decoherence structure. The analysis of static, spherically symmetric compact configurations, obtained from a simple “decoherence-energy” functional E[gamma], which: have a regular, non-singular core, exhibit a Yukawa-type tail, reproduce a Newtonian / Schwarzschild-like exterior over a given radial interval, while avoiding central singularities. A phenomenological layer in which TDG induces decoherence-dependent corrections to gravitational redshift, encoded in an effective parameter epsilon_TDG. This parameter is, in principle, falsifiable with state-of-the-art optical clocks, providing a clear experimental handle: TDG is not only a formal construction, but a framework that can be constrained or ruled out by precision redshift measurements. A key feature of this revised version is the inclusion of a set of analytical stress tests explicitly designed to challenge the model within the regime it claims to describe (weak-field, GKSL, Markovian): regular-core compact configurations, extreme parameter limits (diffusion, screening length scales, etc.), dynamical behaviour of the decoherence tensor, analysis of the absence of finite-time collapse in the GKSL setting. These stress tests show that, under the stated assumptions and within the weak-field regime, the TDG framework remains regular, well-posed, and consistent with its own domain of validity. The Zenodo deposit therefore gathers both a main TDG manuscript (model structure + weak-field applications) and a technical stress-test note, enabling readers to assess not only the construction itself, but also its internal robustness and phenomenological viability. This deposit is intended to serve as a stable reference for the current version of TDG: it provides the complete description of the framework together with the technical ingredients needed to evaluate its mathematical consistency, its compatibility with weak-field gravity, and its falsifiability through decoherence-sensitive redshift tests with optical clocks.
This work proposes the Collapse Clock Hypothesis, a framework in which physical time is defined by the rate of irreversible wavefunction collapse, interpreted as a process of information pruning constrained by finite informational capacity. Within this framework, spatial variations in collapse rate give rise to differential progression of proper time, providing a potential mechanism for gravitational time dilation and related phenomena. The approach integrates concepts from quantum information theory, thermodynamics, and emergent spacetime, drawing connections to prior work on entanglement entropy, holographic bounds, and thermodynamic derivations of gravitational dynamics. A computational implementation using a Score-Driven Kinetic Ising Model (SDKIM) is presented to explore whether the proposed causal chain—mass → interactions → entanglement → collapse suppression → slower time—can arise dynamically in a simplified lattice system. The simulations demonstrate robust qualitative behavior consistent with collapse-rate suppression in highly entangled regions, while also highlighting important limitations, including the use of mean-field approximations and the absence of a direct quantitative mapping to known gravitational field equations. This work is intended as a speculative but testable framework rather than a complete theory. Several falsifiable predictions are outlined, including potential signatures in precision timekeeping, quantum-coherent systems, gravitational wave phase evolution, and cosmological observables. These predictions are presented at an order-of-magnitude level and require further development for direct comparison with experimental data. The goal of this work is to explore whether irreversible information dynamics may provide a unifying underlying mechanism for time, gravity, and cosmological evolution, and to motivate further investigation into collapse-based approaches to fundamental physics.
We present a unified and minimal theoretical framework addressing the quantum-classical transition, the measurement problem, and the emergence of the arrow of time, grounded in gravitational physics. Building on the insight that quantum superpositions of mass distributions necessarily imply superpositions of gravitational potentials, we show that such states are unavoidably associated with superpositions of proper times due to gravitational time dilation. By extending the system Hilbert space to include a temporal degree of freedom, we demonstrate that matter-time entanglement leads naturally to effective decoherence when the time degree of freedom is traced out. The resulting reduced dynamics takes the form of a Lindblad master equation derived from an underlying unitary evolution. This framework reproduces the correct microscopic and macroscopic limits, clarifies the relation to Diósi-Penrose-type models, and provides a coherent account of classicality and temporal irreversibility without postulating observers, environmental decoherence as fundamental, or objective wavefunction collapse.
Gravity is traditionally understood either as geometric curvature (general relativity) or as an external classical field acting on quantum systems. This paper develops a unified alternative: gravity arises from spatial variation in the temporal coherence window τ(x), the finite interval over which quantum systems can sustain coherent phase relations before collapse. Building on experimental evidence that decoherence rates in laboratory systems obey an empirical κ/τ law, I show that gravitational self-energy constrains coherence time according to τgrav ∝ 1/√(Gρ). Three independent derivations—via a modified Lindblad equation, an effective potential Veff = A/τ, and spectral-overlap analysis—converge on the same dynamical law: a(x) = −∇[1/τ(x)], identifying gravitational acceleration as coherence-gradient descent. In this view, mass is condensed temporal capacity, curvature is the geometric imprint of temporal structure, and falling is the drift of quantum evolution toward regions where coherence collapses most rapidly. I extend this framework to show that gravity is engineerable: any spatially structured decoherence environment producing an artificial coherence profile τart(x) generates a gravitational-like acceleration agen(x) = −κart ∇[1/τart(x)], indistinguishable from natural gravitation insofar as their coherence-gradient profiles match. I provide explicit recipes for realizing such gradients using noise-shaping, optical scattering, dissipative optical lattices, and superconducting cavity engineering, along with quantitative acceleration estimates (10⁻⁷–10⁻³ m/s²) and full experimental protocols for cold atoms, matter-wave interferometry, and superconducting qubits. Finally, the framework offers a microphysical account of gravitational time dilation, predicts non-universal response in highly coherent systems, suggests achievable tabletop tests, and points toward a future τ-field theory capable of reproducing general relativity in the macroscopic limit. The result is a falsifiable, coherence-based foundation for gravitation and the first principled pathway to artificial gravity via engineered temporal coherence.
The gravitational decoherence field studies the suppression of coherence in quantum systems caused by effects rooted in the gravitational interaction. This models are not just important to yield interesting ideas about the search, in regimes others than the Planck scale, for the interplay between quantum mechanics and general relativity, but also from a theoretical point of view. The fact that the gravitational field can not be shielded opens the question of how strong will the gravitational ‘environment’ decohere a quantum system? and if this decoherence can somehow explain the absence of macroscopical super- positions? This thesis studies in depth the ‘Classical Channel Gravity’ (CCG) model, a recent proposal of gravitational decoherence that assumes that the gravitational interac- tion is always accompanied with an intrinsic decoherence mechanism which ensures that there is no transmission of quantum information between the parties involved. This model can be understood a series of weak continuous quantum measurements accompanied with a feedback term produced by some underlying hidden gravitational degrees of freedom. We first study all the possible emergent dynamics from collisional Markovian dynamics; these ones range from exact unitary to arbitrary fast decoherence (Zeno effect). The second part of the thesis is devoted to study the Newtonian and post Newtonian limits of the CCG model, with particular focus on the testability features of CCG. In particular, we apply this model to coupled clocks and find that the amount of decoherence predicted by CCG is the same as the decoherence that an ‘environment of clocks’ will imprint in a single clock in the context of unitary evolution. On the other hand, we find that this effect is far from being detectable with the current achieved time accuracy. However, CCG as a model for multi partite systems and two systems with very different masses seems to yield an amount of decoherence that is not only able to be detectable with current experiments but also seems to indicate that this model is ruled out. Nevertheless, we also mention potential caveats with our assumptions and discuss other physically motivated directions to further study this result. Finally, we also explore the extension of CCG for the cosmological scenario. In this context the scale factor is being decohered by test particles ‘sitting’ on spacetime. We find that this decoherence will be seen by an observer unaware of the CCG fundamental mechanism as an emergent form of dark energy filling the universe.
This preprint develops a unified coherence-based formulation of physical time grounded in the χ–η–I invariant structure of the Aletheia framework. Across quantum, thermodynamic, gravitational, and cosmological regimes, the paper introduces a scalar coherence potential Ψ constructed from purity, entropy, and structural persistence, and proposes that the physical time increment satisfies the differential law: dt = –κ dΨ In this formulation, time flow is the measurable rate at which coherence is depleted through decoherence, coarse-graining, or environmental coupling. When Ψ is constant—as in globally stationary, Page–Wootters–style quantum states—no internal time elapses. When coherence degrades, time emerges as the bookkeeping of informational loss. The paper demonstrates that this temporal-coupling law naturally reproduces: Thermodynamic time in the macroscopic limit (dt ∝ dS), Quantum decoherence arrows in open-system dynamics, Proper-time–like behavior in weakly decohering or isolated systems, Cosmological time flow via mode decoherence in an expanding FRW universe. Explicit models including qubit dephasing, Lindblad oscillators, and cosmological field modes illustrate how temporal coupling unifies arrows of time across domains traditionally treated with separate frameworks. This formulation provides a coherence-theoretic bridge between general relativity, quantum decoherence, and thermodynamic irreversibility, offering an empirically grounded alternative to conventional parameter-time, thermal time, and entanglement-clock approaches.