Can Bohmian Mechanics Be Made Background Independent?

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether Bohmian mechanics, a non-local particle theory, can be reformulated to be background independent, using Barbour's best-matching framework, and finds promising intermediate results.

Contribution

It offers an analysis of Bohmian mechanics' compatibility with background independence through Barbour's framework, suggesting potential for reformulation.

Findings

Bohmian mechanics may be compatible with background independence.

Barbour's best-matching framework provides a useful interpretative tool.

Intermediate results favor the possibility of background-independent Bohmian mechanics.

Abstract

The paper presents an inquiry into the question regarding the compatibility of Bohmian mechanics, intended as a non-local theory of moving point-like particles, with background independence. This issue is worth being investigated because, if the Bohmian framework has to be of some help in developing new physics, it has to be compatible with the most well-established traits of modern physics, background independence being one of such traits. The paper highlights the fact that the notion of background independence in the context of spacetime physics is slippery and interpretation-laden. It is then suggested that the best-matching framework developed by Julian Barbour might provide a robust enough meaning of background independence. The structure of Bohmian dynamics is evaluated against this framework, reaching some intermediate results that speak in favor of the fact that Bohmian mechanics can be made background independent.