When Time Emerges

Author(s)
Cornelia Faustmann, Helmut Neufeld, Walter Thirring
Abstract

We study the geodesics in a space-time where a metric with Minkowski type signature is continued across a singularity to a region with a different space-time signature. Contrary to naive expectation, the motion of test particles does not end up in a catastrophe. Depending on the form of the signature change and the initial conditions, timelike (or light-like) geodesics are either reflected at the singularity or even leave the Minkowski sector and use the region with the flipped metric for a time travel. An observer in the Minkowski sector interprets this as the creation of a particle and an antiparticle at the singularity.

Organisation(s)
Vienna University Library and Archive Services, Particle Physics
Pages
277-291
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789814277839_0016
Publication date
2009
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
1030 Physics, Astronomy
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/when-time-emerges(16ebd7cd-7c2b-43c6-b948-fc5cd0be7fe3).html