T Violation and the Unidirectionality of Time

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Author(s)
Vaccaro, Joan A
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2011
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An increasing number of experiments at the Belle, BNL, CERN, DAFNE and SLAC accelerators are confirming the violation of time reversal invariance (T). The violation signifies a fundamental asymmetry between the past and future and calls for a major shift in the way we think about time. Here we show that processes which violate T symmetry induce destructive interference between different paths that the universe can take through time. The interference eliminates all paths except for two that represent continuously forwards and continuously backwards time evolution. Evidence from the accelerator experiments indicates which path ...
View more >An increasing number of experiments at the Belle, BNL, CERN, DAFNE and SLAC accelerators are confirming the violation of time reversal invariance (T). The violation signifies a fundamental asymmetry between the past and future and calls for a major shift in the way we think about time. Here we show that processes which violate T symmetry induce destructive interference between different paths that the universe can take through time. The interference eliminates all paths except for two that represent continuously forwards and continuously backwards time evolution. Evidence from the accelerator experiments indicates which path the universe is effectively following. This work may provide fresh insight into the long-standing problem of modeling the dynamics of T violation processes. It suggests that T violation has previously unknown, large-scale physical effects and that these effects underlie the origin of the unidirectionality of time. It may have implications for the Wheeler-DeWitt equation of canonical quantum gravity. Finally it provides a view of the quantum nature of time itself.
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View more >An increasing number of experiments at the Belle, BNL, CERN, DAFNE and SLAC accelerators are confirming the violation of time reversal invariance (T). The violation signifies a fundamental asymmetry between the past and future and calls for a major shift in the way we think about time. Here we show that processes which violate T symmetry induce destructive interference between different paths that the universe can take through time. The interference eliminates all paths except for two that represent continuously forwards and continuously backwards time evolution. Evidence from the accelerator experiments indicates which path the universe is effectively following. This work may provide fresh insight into the long-standing problem of modeling the dynamics of T violation processes. It suggests that T violation has previously unknown, large-scale physical effects and that these effects underlie the origin of the unidirectionality of time. It may have implications for the Wheeler-DeWitt equation of canonical quantum gravity. Finally it provides a view of the quantum nature of time itself.
View less >
Journal Title
Foundations of Physics
Volume
41
Issue
10
Copyright Statement
© 2011 Springer Netherlands. This is an electronic version of an article published in Foundations of Physics, October 2011, Volume 41, Issue 10, pp 1569-1596. Foundations of Physics is available online at: http://link.springer.com// with the open URL of your article.
Subject
Mathematical sciences
Physical sciences
Cosmology and extragalactic astronomy
Quantum physics not elsewhere classified
Philosophy and religious studies