PIRSA:24030118

Tiny universes from ensembles of open quantum systems

Shandera, S. (2024). Tiny universes from ensembles of open quantum systems. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/24030118

Shandera, Sarah. Tiny universes from ensembles of open quantum systems. Perimeter Institute, Mar. 20, 2024, https://pirsa.org/24030118 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:24030118,
            doi = {10.48660/24030118},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/24030118},
            author = {Shandera, Sarah},
            keywords = {Other},
            language = {en},
            title = {Tiny universes from ensembles of open quantum systems},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2024},
            month = {mar},
            note = {PIRSA:24030118 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Sarah Shandera Pennsylvania State University

DOI 10.48660/24030118
Collection
Talk Type Scientific Series
Subject

Abstract

Gravity creates space-time boundaries that limit observables without limiting the flow of energy and information. This means that quantum systems in cosmology are often open systems: to describe them we must include the effects of interaction with an unobservable environment. In many cosmological settings, different observers see different parts of the spacetime; the ensemble of the open systems for each observer makes up the full cosmology. In this talk I will introduce a class of out-of-equilibrium quantum systems constructed to mimic some key features of cosmology and demonstrate the utility of treating the full system as an ensemble of open systems. I will use these models to illustrate the possible connections between cosmological open quantum systems and thermodynamics, as well as open-systems-inspired ways to think about locality.

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