Entanglement, complexity, and causal asymmetry in quantum theories

DOI10.1007/S10701-022-00562-0zbMATH Open1495.81021arXiv2204.06742OpenAlexW4223919085WikidataQ114226454 ScholiaQ114226454MaRDI QIDQ2139444FDOQ2139444

Porter Williams

Publication date: 17 May 2022

Published in: Foundations of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: It is often claimed that one cannot locate a notion of causation in fundamental physical theories. The reason most commonly given is that the dynamics of those theories do not support any distinction between the past and the future, and this vitiates any attempt to locate a notion of causal asymmetry -- and thus of causation -- in fundamental physical theories. I argue that this is incorrect: the ubiquitous generation of entanglement between quantum systems grounds a relevant asymmetry in the dynamical evolution of quantum systems. I show that by exploiting a connection between the amount of entanglement in a quantum state and the algorithmic complexity of that state, one can use recently developed tools for causal inference to identify a causal asymmetry -- and a notion of causation -- in the dynamical evolution of quantum systems. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-022-00562-0

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.06742

zbMATH Keywords

causal inferenceentanglementcausationalgorithmic complexityquantum theories

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Causal inference from observational studies (62D20) Evolutionary algorithms, genetic algorithms (computational aspects) (68W50) Quantum computation (81P68) Quantum coherence, entanglement, quantum correlations (81P40) Networks and circuits as models of computation; circuit complexity (68Q06)

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Cited In (1)

• Entanglement renormalization, quantum error correction, and bulk causality

Uses Software

• TETRAD

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