The Relativistic Transactional Interpretation and Spacetime Emergence

TL;DR

This paper proposes a model where spacetime emerges from a quantum substratum through a transactional process, replacing the traditional background spacetime with quantum systems that define proper times and inertial frames.

Contribution

It introduces a relativistic transactional interpretation that explains spacetime emergence from quantum systems with rest mass, challenging the background spacetime assumption.

Findings

Spacetime events are established via quantum transactions.

Quantum systems with rest mass define proper times and inertial frames.

The model distinguishes absolute from relative motion through quantum processes.

Abstract

We consider the manner in which the spacetime manifold emerges from a quantum substratum through the transactional process, in which spacetime events and their connections are established. In this account, there is no background spacetime as is generally assumed in physical theorizing. Instead, the usual notion of a background spacetime is replaced by the quantum substratum, comprising quantum systems with nonvanishing rest mass. Rest mass corresponds to internal periodicities that function as internal clocks defining proper times, and in turn, inertial frames that are not themselves aspects of the spacetime manifold, but are pre-spacetime reference structures. Specific processes in the quantum substratum serve to distinguish absolute from relative motion.