There are hints that the connectivity of space-time in quantum gravity could emerge from entanglement, and it has further been proposed that any two entangled particles may be connected by a quantum wormhole. One way to test this proposal is by probing the electric field of an entangled charged particle to determine whether its electric field leaks through the putative wormhole. In addition, if such a wormhole is traversable, then it could be possible for the collapse of the wave function (...) to occur in a causal manner, with information about the collapse travelling through the wormhole at the speed of light, rather than the wave function collapse being a global and instantaneous event. (shrink)

Einstein’s Equivalence Principle implies that the Lorentz force equation can be derived from a geodesic equation by imposing a certain condition on the electromagnetic potential. We analyze the quantization of that constraint and find the corresponding differential equations for the phase of the wave function. We investigate these equations in the case of Coulomb potential and show that physically acceptable solutions do not exist. This result signals an inconsistency between Einstein’s Equivalence Principle and Relativistic Quantum Mechanics at an atomic level.

In the context of a particular framework of emergent quantum mechanics, it is argued the emergent origin of the inertial mass of a physical system. Two main consequences of the theory are discussed: an emergent interpretation of the law of inertia and a derivation of the energy-time uncertainty relation.

Previous work has shown that spontaneous collapse of Fock states of identical fermions can be modeled as arising from random Rabi oscillations between two states. In this paper, a mathematical formalism is presented to incorporate this into many-body quantum field theory. This formalism allows for nonlocal collapse in the context of a relativistic system. While there is no absolute time-ordering of events, this approach allows for a coherent narrative of the collapse process.

The question of what should be meant by a measurement is tackled from a mathematical perspective whose physical interpretation is that a measurement is a fundamental process via which a finite amount of classical information is produced. This translates into an algebraic and topological definition of measurement space that caters for the distinction between quantum and classical measurements and allows a notion of observer to be derived.

The singularity theorems of the 1960s showed that Lemaître’s initial symmetry assumptions were not essential for deriving a big-bang origin for a vast multitude of relativistic universe models. Yet the actual universe accords remarkably closely with models of Lemaître’s type. This is a mystery closely related to the form taken by the 2nd law of thermodynamics and is not explained by currently conventional inflationary cosmology. Conformal cyclic cosmology provides another perspective on these issues, one consequence being the necessary initial presence (...) of a dominant scalar material that interacts only gravitationally, but which must ultimately slowly decay away in a novel but perhaps detectable way. According to CCC, our current universe picture provides but one aeon of an unending succession of expanding aeons each having an initial big bang which is the conformal continuation of the remote exponential expansion of its previous aeon. The observational status of CCC is briefly discussed. (shrink)

Experiments witnessing the entanglement between two particles interacting only via the gravitational field have been proposed as a test whether gravity must be quantized. In the language of quantum information, a non-quantum gravitational force would be modeled by local operations with classical communication, which cannot generate entanglement in an initially unentangled state. This idea is criticized as too constraining on possible alternatives to quantum gravity. We present a parametrized model for the gravitational interaction of quantum matter on a classical spacetime, (...) inspired by the de Broglie–Bohm formulation of quantum mechanics, which results in entanglement and thereby provides an explicit counterexample to the claim that only a quantized gravitational field possesses this capability. (shrink)

We present here solutions of a non-linear Schrödinger equation in presence of an arbitrary linear external potential. The non-linearity expresses a self-focusing interaction. These solutions are the product of the pilot wave with peaked solitons the velocity of which obeys the guidance equation derived by Louis de Broglie in 1926. The degree of validity of our approximations increases when the size of the soliton decreases and becomes negligible compared to the typical size over which the pilot wave varies. We discuss (...) the possibility to reveal their existence by implementing a humpty-dumpty Stern-Gerlach interferometer in the mesoscopic regime. (shrink)