2015/08/31 by Dmitriy I. Podolskiy, Dmitriy Podolskiy, Robert Lanza
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Arrow of time #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Gravitation #Gravitational field #Observer (physics) #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum decoherence #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/andp.201600011
published as Annalen der Physik, 528, 9-10, 663-676 (2016) · 28 pages, 3 figures; matches version published in Annalen der Physik
openalex publication_date 2016/09/26 · arxiv created 2017/02/26 · arxiv updated 2017/02/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
It was previously argued that the phenomenon of quantum gravitational decoherence described by the Wheeler‐DeWitt equation is responsible for the emergence of the arrow of time. Here we show that the characteristic spatio‐temporal scales of quantum gravitational decoherence are typically logarithmically larger than a characteristic curvature radius of the background space‐time. This largeness is a direct consequence of the fact that gravity is a non‐renormalizable theory, and the corresponding effective field theory is nearly decoupled from matter degrees of freedom in the physical limit . Therefore, as such, quantum gravitational decoherence is too ineffective to guarantee the emergence of the arrow of time and the “quantum‐to‐classical” transition to happen at scales of physical interest. We argue that the emergence of the arrow of time is directly related to the nature and properties of physical observer. image