D. M. Ludwin’s research while affiliated with Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and other places

The role of time has changed conceptually moving from classical Newtonian physics to general relativity and is one of the main obstacles avoiding a clear unification between a covariant quantum mechanics theory and a theory of gravity. In quantum mechanics as in Newtonian physics, time is an evolutional causal parameter, while in general relativity, time has become a spatial axis where matter is spread over the whole world line (an unlocalized 4D wave function), and the 4D picture became a static picture where our empirical experience of dynamics is merely an illusion of our minds. Understanding that Newtonian time still exists in parallel to the 4D world, raises the possibility to describe gravity within a manifestly covariant quantum theory. The examples of the use of such a theory raise the possibility of a clear interpretation of recent interference in time experiments, and also raise new physics when dealing with a curved spacetime.

We wish to study an application of Stueckelberg's relativistic quantum theory in the framework of general relativity. We study the form of the wave equation of a massive body in the presence of a Schwarzschild gravitational field. We treat the mathematical behavior of the wavefunction also around and beyond the horizon (r=2M). Classically, within the horizon, the time component of the metric becomes spacelike and distance from the origin singularity becomes timelike, suggesting an inevitable propagation of all matter within the horizon to a total collapse at r=0. However, the quantum description of the wave function provides a different understanding of the behavior of matter within the horizon. We find that a test particle can almost never be found at the origin and is more probable to be found at the horizon. Matter outside the horizon has a very small wave length and therefore interference effects can be found only on a very small atomic scale. However, within the horizon, matter becomes totally "tachionic" and is potentially "spread" over all space. Small location uncertainties on the atomic scale become large around the horizon, and different mass components of the wave function can therefore interfere on a stellar scale. This interference phenomenon, where the probability of finding matter decreases as a function of the distance from the horizon, appears as an effective gravitational repulsion. Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure