The cosmological origin of time-asymmetry

MARIO CASTAGNINO; LUIS LARA; OLIMPIA LOMBARDI

CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM GRAVITY

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Año: 2003 vol. 20 p. 369 - 391

0264-9381

In this paper, we address the problem of the arrow of time from a cosmological point of view, rejecting the traditional entropic approach that defines the future direction of time as the direction of the entropy increase: from our perspective, the arrow of time has a global origin and it is an intrinsic, geometrical feature of spacetime. Time orientability and the existence of a cosmic time are necessary conditions for defining an arrow of time,which is manifested globally as the time asymmetry of the universe as a whole, and locally as a time asymmetric energy flux. We also consider arrows of time of different origins (quantum, electromagnetic, thermodynamic, etc) showing that they can be non-conventionally defined only if the geometrical arrow is previously defined.