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

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.

172 pages; author's doctoral dissertation, Department of Physics, University at Albany-SUNY, April 2021

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