Abstract
The event formalism is a nonlinear extension of quantum field theory designed to be compatible with the closed time-like curves that appear in general relativity. Whilst reducing to standard quantum field theory in flat space-time the formalism leads to testably different predictions for entanglement distribution in curved space. In this paper we introduce a more general version of the formalism and use it to analyse the practicality of an experimental test of its predictions in the Earthʼs gravitational well.
Highlights
A complete theory of quantum gravity has remained elusive for almost a century since the discovery of quantum mechanics
Unlike Penrose and other models that treat space-time classically and posit a nonlinear dynamical equation, the event formalism has a number of novel features: it predicts decoherence only for entangled systems and not single systems in a superposition; the effect is in principle reversible by further gravitational interactions; and it may exhibit information processing power greater than that of standard quantum mechanics [14]
For curved space in general, Δ ≠ t and for modes that follow different paths we can have Δ − Δ′ ≠ 0, potentially leading to non-linear effects. These definitions are sufficient to write down a simple recipe for calculating expectation values in the Heisenberg picture with the event formalism
Summary
A complete theory of quantum gravity has remained elusive for almost a century since the discovery of quantum mechanics. By contrast to the above approaches, the mechanism considered in the present work is based on a completely different thought experiment due to Deutsch: the self-consistent dynamics of quantum systems near closed time-like curves [12]. Unlike Penrose and other models that treat space-time classically and posit a nonlinear dynamical equation, the event formalism has a number of novel features: it predicts decoherence only for entangled systems and not single systems in a superposition; the effect is in principle reversible by further gravitational interactions ( it is better called ‘de-correlation’ than decoherence); and it may exhibit information processing power greater than that of standard quantum mechanics [14].
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