# Tunneling through bridges: Bohmian non-locality from higher-derivative gravity

## TL;DR

This paper proposes that higher-derivative gravity theories can provide a classical origin for the quantum potential, linking black hole physics, wormholes, and quantum entanglement through a modified gravitational framework.

## Contribution

It introduces a 4th-order extension of Einstein's equations that reproduces the quantum potential and connects entanglement with traversable wormholes in a classical gravity setting.

## Key findings

- Higher-derivative gravity can produce the quantum potential.
- Entangled particles may be connected by Planck-scale wormholes.
- Classical gravity models can explain quantum nonlocality.

## Abstract

A classical origin for the Bohmian quantum potential, as that potential term arises in the quantum mechanical treatment of black holes and Einstein-Rosen (ER) bridges, can be based on 4th-order extensions of Einstein's equations. The required 4th-order extension of general relativity is given by adding quadratic curvature terms with coefficients that maintain a fixed ratio, as their magnitudes approach zero, with classical general relativity as a singular limit. If entangled particles are connected by a Planck-width ER bridge, as conjectured by Maldacena and Susskind, then a connection by a traversable Planck-scale wormhole, allowed in 4th-order gravity, describes such entanglement in the ontological interpretation. It is hypothesized that higher-derivative gravity can account for the nonlocal part of the quantum potential generally.