![]() ![]() The standard Caldeira-Leggett model, introduced in 1981, is temporally provincial with the arrow of time built into the math underlying the model. “We’re so stuck in our little world, or our little universe, that we forget how things might actually be.” “We’re so used to the arrow of time being part of our world that we very naturally include it in our theories unquestioningly,” Albrecht said. ![]() Albrecht referred to this phenomenon as “temporal provincialism,” a term popularized in the physics community by Leonard Susskind, the Felix Bloch Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Since time is inherent to our perception of the universe, it’s often unthinkingly included in our theories about how the universe works. In their work, Albrecht, Baunach and Andrew Arrasmith, of Los Alamos National Laboratory, divorce the arrow of time from the go-to theoretical tool for understanding decoherence: the Caldeira-Leggett model. ![]() “It’s the process by which quantum superpositions are reduced to classical states due to interactions with an environment.” “Decoherence is part of the reason why you and I experience a classical reality largely free from quantum ‘weirdness,’” said Rose Baunach, a physics graduate student and the papers’ co-author. In two papers appearing in Physical Review Research, Albrecht and his colleagues introduce a new model to explore the phenomenon of decoherence, which is when a system’s behavior shifts from being explainable by quantum mechanics to being explainable by classical mechanics. “In the cosmology world, there’s a question of how did the universe come to be such a thing that’s so good at hiding quantum physics?”įor Albrecht, the answer to that question may lie in investigating the relationship between quantum physics and the arrow of time. “Quantum physics doesn’t just tell one story it tells many probabilities of different stories,” said Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy Andreas Albrecht, who directs the Center for Quantum Mathematics and Physics at UC Davis. It’s a world of quantum superpositions, in which systems exist in multiple states until they’re measured. If you spill a drink, you can’t reverse time and pull the liquid back into the cup.īut beneath the fabric of our perceived reality is a quantum realm, a world of subatomic particles that behave in ways baffling to our classical understanding of the universe. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day, you live it. The arrow of time is a staple of human perception. ![]()
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