Negative-Energy Matter and the Direction of Time
This report offers a modern perspective on the problem of negative energy, based on a re-examination of the concept of time direction as it arises in a classical and quantum-mechanical context. From this analysis emerges an improved understanding of the general-relativistic stress-energy of matter as being a manifestation of local variations in the energy density of zero-point vacuum fluctuations. Based on those developments, a set of axioms is proposed from which is derived a generalized classical theory of gravitation that preserves the basic mathematical structure of relativity, but that simplifies the equations of the theory in the presence of negative-energy matter and vacuum energy. Those results are then applied to provide original solutions to several long-standing problems in cosmology, including the problem of the nature of dark matter and dark energy, that of the origin of thermodynamic time asymmetry, and a few other issues which are usually approached using inflation theory. Important progress is also achieved concerning quantitative aspects of black hole entropy and gravitational information. Finally, we draw on those developments to provide significant new insights into the foundations of quantum theory, regarding, in particular, the problem of quantum non-locality, that of the emergence of time in quantum cosmology, as well as the question of the persistence of quasiclassicality following decoherence.