Time travel without paradoxes: Ring resonator as a universal paradigm for looped quantum evolutions

Abstract

A ring resonator involves a scattering process where a part of the output is fed again into the input. The same formal structure is encountered in the problem of time travel in a neighborhood of a closed timelike curve (CTC). We know how to describe quantum optics of ring resonators, and the resulting description agrees with experiment. We can apply the same formal strategy to any looped quantum evolution, in particular to the time travel. The argument is in its essence a topological one and thus does not refer to any concrete geometry. It is shown that the resulting paradigm automatically removes logical inconsistencies associated with chronology protection, provided all input-output relations are given by unitary maps. Examples of elementary loops and a two-loop time machine illustrate the construction. In order to apply the formalism to quantum computation one has to describe multi-qubit systems interacting via CTC-based quantum gates. This is achieved by second quantization of loops. An example of a multiparticle system, with oscillators interacting via a time machine, is explicitly calculated. However, the resulting treatment of CTCs is not equivalent to the one proposed by Deutsch in his classic paper [1].