Fundamental Irreversibility: Planckian or Schrödinger–Newton?

Abstract

The concept of universal gravity-related irreversibility began in quantum cosmology. The ultimate reason for universal irreversibility is thought to come from black holes close to the Planck scale. Quantum state reductions, unrelated to gravity or relativity but related to measurement devices, are completely different instances of irreversibilities. However, an intricate relationship between Newton gravity and quantized matter might result in fundamental and spontaneous quantum state reduction—in the non-relativistic Schrödinger–Newton context. The above two concepts of fundamental irreversibility emerged and evolved with few or even no interactions. The purpose here is to draw a parallel between the two approaches first, and to ask rather than answer the question: can both the Planckian and the Schrödinger–Newton indeterminacies/irreversibilities be two faces of the same universe. A related personal note of the author’s 1986 meeting with Aharonov and Bohm is appended.

Keywords

• fundamental irreversibility
• space-time fluctuations
• spontaneous state reduction