Space-time symmetries and internal quantum symmetries can be placed on equal footing in a hyperspin geometry. Four-dimensional classical space-time emerges as a result of a decoherence that disentangles the quantum and the space-time degrees of freedom. A map from the quantum space-time to classical space-time that preserves the causality relations of space-time events is necessarily a density matrix.
Space-time symmetries and internal quantum symmetries can be placed on equal footing in a hyperspin geometry. Four-dimensional classical space-time emerges as a result of a decoherence that disentangles the quantum and the space-time degrees of freedom. A map from the quantum space-time to classical space-time that preserves the causality relations of space-time events is necessarily a density matrix.
We begin with a brief summary of issues encountered involving causality in quantum theory, placing careful emphasis on the assumptions involved in results such as the EPR paradox and Bell's inequality. We critique some solutions to the resulting paradox, including Rovelli's relational quantum mechanics and the many-worlds interpretation. We then discuss how a spacetime manifold could come about on the classical level out of a quantum system, by constructing a space with a topology out of the algebra of observables, and show that even with an hypothesis of superluminal causation enforcing consistent measurements of entangled states, a causal cone structure arises on the classical level. Finally, we discuss the possibility that causality as understood in classical relativistic physics may be an emergent symmetry which does not hold on the quantum level.
In ordinary, non-relativistic, quantum physics, time enters only as a parameter and not as an observable: a state of a physical system is specified at a given time and then evolved according to the prescribed dynamics. While the state can, and usually does, extend across all space, it is only defined at one instant of time, in conflict with special relativity where space and time are treated on an equal footing. Here we ask what would happen if we defined the notion of the quantum density matrix for multiple spatial and temporal measurements. We introduce the concept of a pseudo-density matrix which treats space and time indiscriminately. This matrix in general fails to be positive for timelike separated measurements, motivating us to define a measure of causality that discriminates between spacelike and timelike correlations. Important properties of this measure, such as monotonicity under local operations, are proved. Two qubit NMR experiments are presented that illustrate how a temporal pseudo-density matrix approaches a genuinely allowed density matrix as the amount of decoherence is increased between two consecutive measurements.
We propose a modification of the coupling between classical spacetime geometry and quantum matter in which the spacetime metric at each event is sourced by the stress-energy tensor evaluated on a locally decohered density matrix constructed from the causal past of that event. This replaces the usual semiclassical expectation value with a coarse-grained stress tensor derived from a decoherence channel acting on the quantum state restricted to the causal past. In this framework, decoherence determines which sector of the quantum state can influence classical spacetime geometry: coherent phase correlations remain present in the quantum state but do not source classical spacetime geometry. The resulting effective stress tensor is formulated to be covariant and compatible with the Bianchi identities under branchwise conservation. The framework avoids macroscopic-superposition paradoxes of the traditional semiclassical approach and predicts the absence of gravitationally mediated entanglement in the Bose–Marletto–Vedral protocol. Observation of such entanglement would therefore falsify the proposal.
Quantum mechanics successfully predicts experimental outcomes, yet its geometric and causal interpretation remains an open area of foundational inquiry. Concepts such as superposition, interference, and decoherence are frequently described as intrinsically probabilistic or nonclassical, often leaving unresolved whether these behaviors reflect fundamental randomness or limitations of our representational framework. This paper proposes a geometric reinterpretation in which quantum phenomena arise from the projection of a deeper causal structure into observer-dependent frames. Through thought experiments only, this work explores the possible literal interpretation of an orthogonal space-causal frame of reference, associated with null propagation, within a physical tradition otherwise strongly rooted in time-causal description. In our familiar time-causal frame, time is treated as the ordered causal axis and space as a volumetric domain of alternatives. Introduced here is a complementary space-causal frame, in which space becomes the ordered causal axis while time forms a volumetric domain of alternatives. Within this framework, superposition, interference, and decoherence emerge as consequences of geometric constraint rather than physical collapse. This approach preserves relativistic causality, introduces no additional dimensions, and leaves experimental predictions unchanged while offering a unified conceptual account of quantum behavior.
The consistent histories formalism can be used to describe histories comprised of events across many systems, times, and places, plausibly rich enough to describe our experiences of the classical world; however, many consistent history sets are nonclassical and thus not obviously relevant to our experiences. Meanwhile, the program of environmentally induced decoherence identifies dynamically privileged classical degrees of freedom, but provides no general account of when or how many such degrees of freedom consistently combine to form histories. This work shows that the strengths of these two approaches can be combined by adopting a dynamics-first perspective on decoherence. Inspired by quantum causal models and quantum Darwinism, we define the process of decoherence in terms of the causal influences through unitary dynamics required for the proliferation of information about observables. We characterise decoherence as a property of the unitary dynamics, without presupposing the existence of any quantum state. Instead, we show that the state emerges from dual decoherence, related to decoherence by time-reversal of the unitary dynamics. Indeed, for any set of systems in an arbitrary unitary circuit, decoherence and its dual single out a privileged consistent history set -- and we demonstrate through examples that states emerge from dual decoherence while outcomes emerge from decoherence. Hence the idea that quantum states emerge from the process of decoherence turns out to be the key missing ingredient for unifying environmentally induced decoherence and consistent histories. Taking this idea ontologically seriously leads to a recently proposed causal interpretation of quantum theory or a dynamics-first version of the Everett interpretation. The causal approach also sheds light on the suppression of off-diagonal terms, time asymmetry, and robustness of the pointer basis.
This paper explores the fundamental nature of spacetime from the perspective of emergent causal structures, rooted in quantum mechanical principles. We propose a theoretical framework that treats spacetime not as a pre-existing background, but as a collective phenomenon arising from the interaction of quantum causal relations. By analyzing the constraints of causality and quantum coherence, we derive key implications for the emergence of classical spacetime geometry and the limits of local realism. Our results suggest a new way to bridge quantum mechanics and gravitational theory, providing a foundation for future studies in quantum gravity and spacetime physics.