Bonn 2020 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 9: Quantum Theory III

AGPhil 9.2: Talk

Thursday, April 2, 2020, 17:00–17:30, H-HS III

From metaphysical postulates to dissipative quantum field theory — •Hans Christian Öttinger — ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Four metaphysical postulates concerning (i) mathematical images of Nature, (ii) space and time, (iii) infinities, and (iv) irreversibility are used to motivate a fundamental quantum master equation (QME) for quantum field theory (QFT) [1]. This thermodynamically consistent QME provides conceptually clear and mathematically rigorous foundations for QFT, as well as a distinct particle ontology. UV regularization is provided by dissipative smearing, IV regularization results for a finite Universe. The distinction between free and interacting particles gets a deeper meaning going far beyond perturbation theory or the interaction picture. Particles are not localized in space, but all interactions are strictly local; therefore, a high-energy collision in a particle accelerator, followed by many low-energy collisions in a detector, can be used to visualize a bunch of particle trajectories emerging from a vertex.

In the limit of weak dissipation, when the length scale associated with dissipation is smaller than any observable length scale, dissipative QFT reproduces the results of conventional approaches to effective field theories. As a benefit of dissipative QFT, in addition to conceptual clarity and rigor, one is led to a new dynamic simulation methodology based on stochastic unravelings of QMEs in Fock space. Dissipation at the Planck scale might even be considered as the origin of gravity.

[1] H. C. Öttinger, A Philosophical Approach to Quantum Field Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2017).