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Quantum Cosmology in the Light of Quantum Mechanics
Version 1
: Received: 29 January 2019 / Approved: 30 January 2019 / Online: 30 January 2019 (13:08:49 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Robles-Pérez, S.J. Quantum Cosmology in the Light of Quantum Mechanics. Galaxies 2019, 7, 50. Robles-Pérez, S.J. Quantum Cosmology in the Light of Quantum Mechanics. Galaxies 2019, 7, 50.
Abstract
There is a formal analogy between the evolution of the universe, when this is seen as a trajectory in the minisuperspace, and the worldline followed by a test particle in a curved spacetime. The analogy can be extended to the quantum realm, where the trajectories are transformed into wave packets that give us the probability of finding the universe or the particle in a given point of their respective spaces: the spacetime in the case of the particle and the minisuperspace in the case of the universe. The wave function of the spacetime and the matter fields, all together, can then be seen as a super-field that propagates in the minisuperspace and the so-called third quantisation procedure can be applied in a parallel way as the second quantisation procedure is performed with a matter field that propagates in the spacetime. The super-field can thus be interpreted as made up of universes propagating, i.e. evolving, in the minisuperspace. The analogy can also be used in the opposite direction. The way in which the semiclassical state of the universe is obtained in quantum cosmology allows us to obtain, from the quantum state of a field that propagates in the spacetime, the geodesics of the underlying spacetime as well as their quantum uncertainties or dispersions. This might settle a new starting point for a different quantisation of the spacetime.
Keywords
quantum cosmology; semiclassical description; multiverse; minisuperspace; canonical quantisation of spacetime coordinates
Subject
Physical Sciences, Particle and Field Physics
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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