The Entropic Dynamics of Quantum Scalar Fields Coupled to Gravity

TL;DR

This paper develops an entropic dynamics framework for quantum scalar fields in dynamic space-times, unifying quantum field theory and general relativity, and predicts superposition violations due to gravity coupling.

Contribution

It introduces a novel ED model for quantum fields coupled to gravity, emphasizing probability dynamics, symmetry principles, and path independence, bridging quantum and classical regimes.

Findings

Approaches quantum field theory in a specific limit.

Approaches classical general relativity in another limit.

Predicts violations of quantum superposition due to gravity coupling.

Abstract

Entropic dynamics (ED) is a general framework for constructing indeterministic dynamical models based on entropic methods. ED has been used to derive or reconstruct both non-relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory in curved space-time. Here we propose a model for a quantum scalar field propagating in a dynamical space-time. The approach rests on a few key ingredients: (1) Rather than modelling the dynamics of the fields, ED models the dynamics of their probabilities. (2) In accordance with the standard entropic methods of inference the dynamics is dictated by information encoded in constraints. (3) The choice of the physically relevant constraints is dictated by principles of symmetry and invariance. The first such principle imposes the preservation of a symplectic structure which leads to a Hamiltonian formalism with its attendant Poisson brackets and action principle. The second symmetry principle is foliation invariance, which following earlier work by Hojman, Kuchar, and Teitelboim, is implemented as a requirement of path independence. The result is a hybrid ED model that approaches quantum field theory in one limit and classical general relativity in another, but is not fully described by either. A particularly significant prediction of this ED model is that the coupling of quantum fields to gravity implies violations of the quantum superposition principle.