2009/02/13 by Jonathan Oppenheim, Oppenheim, Jonathan, Benni Reznik +1 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0902.2361
openalex publication_date 2009/02/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Theories which have fundamental information destruction or decoherence are motivated by the black hole information paradox where one appears to have pure states evolving into mixed states. However such theories have either violated conservation laws, or are highly non-local. Here, we show that the tension between conservation laws and locality can be circumvented by constructing a relational theory of information destruction. In terms of conservation laws, we derive a generalisation of Noether's theorem for general theories, and show that symmetries imply a strong restriction on the type of evolution permissable. With respect to locality, we distinguish violations of causality from the creation or destruction of space-like seperated correlations. We show that violations of causality need not occur in a relational framework, although one can have situations where correlations decay faster than one might otherwise expect or can be created over spatial distances. This creation or destruction of correlations cannot be used to signal superluminally, and thus no violation of causality occurs. We prove that theories with information destruction can be made time-symmetric, thus impossing no arrow of time.