Physics Seminar: Dr Nicolas Underwood

Centre for Computational Physics

Date: Wednesday 26th of January 2022, 13:30 (GMT).
Type: Hybrid — Online MS Teams and INB Lecture Theatre (INB0114)

‘Information therefore trajectories: Entropy and nonequilibrium in the foundations of quantum theory’

by Dr Nicolas Underwood, School of Mathematics and Physics, College of Science, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK.

Abstract:

Could quantum probabilities have arisen thermodynamically? Although it remained hidden for some 70 years, it is now widely recognised that de Broglie’s quantum trajectories display a spontaneous thermodynamic relaxation to Born’s rule of quantum probabilities. If this is the ultimate reason for Born’s rule, then we must conjecture an earlier quantum nonequilibrium, perhaps present in the early universe. In other words, the universe could have already undergone a subquantum equivalent of the Boltzmann heat death. Nevertheless, primordial quantum nonequilibrium could have had important consequences in the evolution of the early universe, and may have left experimentally observable traces today.

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