The Principle of Locality. Effectiveness, fate and challenges

TL;DR

This paper reviews the foundational role and limitations of the Principle of Locality in quantum field theories, especially in the context of gravity and quantum structures of spacetime, highlighting open challenges and future directions.

Contribution

It analyzes the effectiveness and fate of the Principle of Locality in quantum theories, proposing challenges and potential replacements at the Planck scale.

Findings

The Principle of Locality underpins Quantum Field Theory and gauge invariance.

Locality is expected to break down at the Planck scale due to quantum gravity effects.

Open problems include formulating a local and relativistic measurement theory.

Abstract

The Special Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics merge in the key principle of Quantum Field Theory, the Principle of Locality. We review some examples of its ``unreasonable effectiveness'' (which shows up best in the formulation of Quantum Field Theory in terms of operator algebras of local observables) in digging out the roots of Global Gauge Invariance in the structure of the local observable quantities alone, at least for purely massive theories; but to deal with the Principle of Local Gauge Invariance is still a problem in this frame. This problem emerges also if one attempts to figure out the fate of the Principle of Locality in theories describing the gravitational forces between elementary particles as well. Spacetime should then acquire a quantum structure at the Planck scale, and the Principle of Locality is lost. It is a crucial open problem to unravel a replacement in such theories which is equally mathematically sharp and reduces to the Principle of Locality at larger scales. Besides exploring its fate, many challenges for the Principle of Locality remain; among them, the analysis of Superselection Structure and Statistics also in presence of massless particles, and to give a precise mathematical formulation to the Measurement Process in local and relativistic terms; for which we outline a qualitative scenario which avoids the EPR Paradox.