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arXiv · 2510.20207

Emergent time and more from wavefunction collapse in general relativity

Sung-Sik Lee
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Abstract

In this paper, we further develop a recently proposed theory of time based on wavefunction collapse in general relativity. It is based on the postulations that quantum states, which violate the momentum and Hamiltonian constraints, represent instances of time, and stochastic fluctuations of the lapse and shift generate the time evolution under which an initial state gradually collapses toward a diffeomorphism-invariant state. Under the wavefunction collapse, the scale factor monotonically increases, thus acting as a clock. The scalar, vector, and tensor gravitons arise as physical excitations, and the arrow of time for their evolution is set by the initial state. In the long-time limit, the tensor gravitons exhibit emergent unitary dynamics. However, the extra modes are strongly damped due to the non-unitary dynamics that suppress the constraint-violating excitations. The vector mode is uniformly suppressed over all length scales, but the decay rate of the scalar is proportional to its wave vector. This makes the latter a viable candidate for dark matter; excitations with large wavelengths survive over long periods, contributing to long-range interactions, while the fast decay of short-wavelength modes renders them undetectable without sufficient temporal resolution. These are demonstrated for the cosmological constant-dominated universe through semi-classical and adiabatic approximations, which are controlled in the limit of large space dimension.

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Sung-Sik Lee. 2025-10-23. Emergent time and more from wavefunction collapse in general relativity. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep04(2026)180

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