Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2105.07042

The Entropic Dynamics of Relativistic Quantum Fields in Curved Space-time

Selman Ipek
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

It has often been the case in history that the laws of physics have been used as the framework for understanding and implementing information processing. The tacit assumption is that the laws of physics are fundamental and that the notion of information is derived from these laws. Here we take the opposite view: the laws of physics are an application of the rules for processing information. In this dissertation we apply the Entropic Dynamics (ED) framework to construct a quantum dynamics for scalar fields in space-time. We begin by considering a toy model consisting of many interacting particles, resulting in the familiar Schrodinger equation for non-relativistic particles. Using a similar methodology, we construct a theory of quantum scalar fields in flat space-time that is relativistic, but not manifestly so. Here we also discuss a novel way in which the ED of quantum scalar fields appears to evade the so-called Wallstrom objection. To go further towards constructing a manifestly covariant quantum ED of fields on a curved space-time, both fixed and dynamical, we borrow from the "many-time" approaches of P. Weiss, P. Dirac, K. Kuchar, and C. Teitelboim. For a fixed background the result is a manifestly covariant ED of scalar fields that is in the spirit of the covariant quantum theories proposed by S. Tomonaga and J. Schwinger. However, the formalism is sufficiently flexible so as to allow for the possibility of modeling the back reaction of the quantum matter fields on a fully dynamical classical background. The simplest realization of this classical-quantum interaction shares some formal similarity to semi-classical gravity models, and the semi-classical Einstein equations, in particular. We consider such a theory and discuss its plausibility as a candidate for a quantum gravity theory.

Explore related subjects

gr-qcquant-ph

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Selman Ipek. 2021-05-14. The Entropic Dynamics of Relativistic Quantum Fields in Curved Space-time. https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.07042

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Electrovacuum Black Hole Uniqueness

We prove the black hole uniqueness conjecture in the axially symmetric, stationary, electrovacuum setting, subject to the refined asymptotic analysis of the associated singular harmonic maps, which includes an analyticity hypothesis at the axes. More precisely, it is shown that any asymptotically flat solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations in this class, with more than one black hole horizon component is either: Majumdar--Papapetrou, up to a duality rotation, in which case all logarithmic angle defects vanish, or every finite axis rod logarithmic angle defect is strictly negative and hence every interaction force is strictly attractive. The proof extends the singular harmonic map method used for vacuum Kerr uniqueness in [18].

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Constraining Modified Mass-to-Horizon Cosmology Through Primordial Inflationary Observables

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a modified cosmological framework inspired by a generalized mass-to-horizon relation (MHR), $M=\gamma {c^2 L^n}/{G}$, where $n$ is a real parameter and $\gamma$ a dimensional constant. Using Padmanabhan's emergence paradigm, we derive the modified Friedmann equations for a flat FRW universe and analyze the dynamics of a canonical scalar field (inflaton) under the slow-roll approximation. We study the resulting inflationary phenomenology for power-law and Starobinsky potentials. For power-law potentials, the MHR modification fails to reconcile these models with current CMB constraints on $r$ and $n_s$. In contrast, Starobinsky inflation exhibits significant sensitivity to deviations from $n=1$. A perturbative analysis ($n=1+\Delta$) yields corrections to inflationary observables. We observe that the scalar power-spectrum normalization, under a fixed-Starobinsky prescription, imposes the stringent constraint $0.960 \lesssim n \lesssim 1.040$ for $N=60$ efolds. This is considerably tighter than spectral-index bounds. Our results establish inflation, particularly Starobinsky-like models, as a sensitive probe of generalized horizon thermodynamics and departures from standard MHR scaling.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Improving the Sensitivity of Gravitational Wave Detection with Weighted Conformal Prediction

In the last decade, kilometre-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors have observed hundreds of compact binary mergers, the majority of which are binary black holes. However, the data are noise-dominated, and multiple independent search algorithms (pipelines) are used to enhance sensitivity and improve robustness. Rather than the standard approach of selecting the most significant pipeline output, we combine the outputs from all pipelines using a conformal prediction-based framework to provide statistically rigorous confidence estimates for candidate events. While combining pipelines improves sensitivity and ranking robustness, it requires a principled statistical framework that remains valid as data properties evolve across observing runs. A key challenge is distribution shifts between simulated datasets used for training and calibration and the real, unlabelled, observations used for testing, which can invalidate coverage guarantees and bias confidence estimates. In this work, we address this challenge by incorporating likelihood-ratio reweighting into our conformal prediction framework to account for covariate shift. Using mock datasets containing simulated signals, we demonstrate that weighted conformal prediction restores well-calibrated coverage under covariate shift and increases the confidence of events near the detection threshold, recovering true signals that would otherwise be missed.

gr-qc↗