# Quantum causal histories

## 1 Introduction

In general relativity, with compact rather than asymptotically flat boundary conditions, physical observations are made inside the system that they describe. In quantum theory, the observable quantities are meaningful outside the system that they refer to. It is very likely that quantum gravity must be a “quantum mechanical relativistic theory”. That is, a theory where the observables can be given as self-adjoint operators on a Hilbert space but which are meaningful inside the system that they describe.

A rough description of what such a theory involves is the following. Observations made inside the system are closely related to causality in the sense that an inside observer necessarily splits the history of the system into the part that is in the future, the part that is in the past, and — assuming finite speed of propagation of information — elsewhere. We may call such observables “internal observables”, characterised by the requirement that they refer to information that an observer at a point, or a connected region of spacetime, may be able to gain about their causal past. In a previous paper , we found that these observables can be described by functors from the partially ordered set of events in the spacetime to the category of sets. Such a functor codes the relationship between the causal structure and the information available to an observer inside the spacetime. This has non-trivial consequences and, in particular, the observables algebra is modified even at the classical level. Internal observables satisfy a Heyting algebra, which is a weak version of the Boolean algebra of ordinary observables. This is still a distributional algebra. Namely, for propositions $`P,Q`$ and $`R`$, if $`PQ`$ denotes “$`P`$ or $`Q`$”, and $`PQ`$ means “$`P`$ and $`Q`$”, then $`P(QR)=(PQ)(PR)`$.

On the other hand, quantum mechanics is linear, and as a result of the superposition principle, quantum mechanical propositions are not distributive. If $`P,Q`$ and $`R`$ are projection operators, $`P(QR)`$ is not equal to $`(PQ)(PR)`$. Having both quantum mechanics and internal observables in the same theory requires finding propositions that have a non-distributive quantum mechanical aspect and a distributive causal aspect. The aim of the present paper is to define the histories in which such observables may be encountered.

We will, therefore, define quantum causal histories, which are histories that are both quantum mechanical and causal. Assuming that a discrete causal ordering (a causal set) is a sufficient description of the fundamental past/future ordering needed to qualify observations as being inside the system, we find that a quantum causal history can be constructed by attaching finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces to the events of the causal set. It is then natural to consider tensor products of the Hilbert spaces on events that are spacelike separated. We define quantum histories with local unitary evolution maps between such sets of spacelike separated events. The conditions of reflexivity, antisymmetry and transitivity that hold for the causal set have analogs in the quantum history which are conditions on the evolution operators. We find that transitivity is a strong physical condition on the evolution operators and, if imposed, implies that the quantum causal histories are invariant under directed coarse graining.

If the the causal set represents the universe, quantum causal histories constitute a quantum cosmological theory. Its main notable feature is that there is a Hilbert space for each event but not one for the entire universe. Hence, no wavefunction of the universe arises. A consistent intepretation of quantum causal histories and observatons inside the quantum universe can be provided and will appear in a forthcoming paper .

In more detail, the outline of this paper is the following. In section 2 we review causal set histories and provide a list of definitions of structures that can be found in a causal history and which are used in the quantum causal histories. In particular, we concentrate on acausal sets, sets of causally unrelated events. In section 3, we introduce the poset of acausal sets, equipped with the appropriate ordering relation. The definition of quantum causal histories is based on this poset and is given in section 4. The properties of the resulting histories are discussed in section 5. The ordering of a causal set is reflexive, antisymmetric and transitive, conditions which are also imposed on the quantum histories. The consequences of these properties are analyzed in section 6. In particular, we find that transitivity leads to directed coarse-graining invariance. Two classes of quantum causal histories are given as examples in section 7. Up to this point, the causal histories require a choice of a causal set. In section 8, we remove this restriction and provide a sum-over-histories version of quantum causal evolution. The quantum causal histories presented here are consistent, but not all physically meaningful questions can be asked. There are several possibilities for generalisations, some of which we outline in the Conclusions.

## 2 Causal set histories

A (discrete) causal history is a causal set of events that carry extra structure. For example, the causal histories that were examined in  had as events vector spaces spanned by $`SU_q(2)`$ intertwiners. In two dimensions, an exact model of such a causal history has been proposed by Ambjorn and Loll  and its continuum limit properties have been investigated in . The dynamics of a 3-dimensional causal spin network history model is addressed by Borissov and Gupta in <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1 For pure causal set theories (with no extra structure on the events), we may note recent work by Rideout and Sorkin who derived a family of stochastic sequential growth dynamics for a causal set, with very interesting consequences about the classical limit of pure causal sets . Further, the dynamics of a toy model causal set using a suitable quantum measure was proposed by Criscuolo and Waelbroek in ..

In this section, we review the definition of a causal set and provide several derivative definitions which will be used in the rest of this paper.

A causal set $`𝒞`$ is a partially ordered set whose elements are interpeted as the events in a history (see ). We denote the events by $`p,q,r,\mathrm{}`$. If, say, $`p`$ precedes $`q`$, we write $`pq`$. The equal option is used when $`p`$ coincides with $`q`$. We write $`pRq`$ when either $`pq`$ or $`pq`$ holds.

The causal relation is reflexive, i.e. $`pp`$ for any event $`p`$. It is also transitive, i.e. if $`pq`$ and $`qr`$, then $`pr`$. To ensure that $`𝒞`$ has no closed timelike loops, we make the causal relation antisymmetric, that is, if $`pq`$ and $`qp`$, then $`p=q`$. Finally, we limit ourselves to histories with a finite number of events.

Given a causal set, there are several secondary structures that we can construct from it and which come in useful in this paper. We therefore list them here (see Figures 1 and 2):

* The causal past of some event $`p`$ is the set of all events $`r𝒞`$ with $`rp`$. We denote the causal past of $`p`$ by $`P(p)`$.
* The causal future of $`p`$ is the set of all events $`q𝒞`$ with $`pq`$. We denote it by $`F(p)`$.
* An acausal set, denoted $`a,b,c,\mathrm{}`$, is a set of events in $`𝒞`$ that are all causally unrelated to each other.
* The acausal set $`a`$ is a complete past of the event $`p`$ when every event in the causal past $`P(p)`$ of $`p`$ is related to some event in $`a`$. It is not possible to add an event from $`(P(p)a)`$ to $`a`$ and produce a new acausal set.
* Similarly, an acausal set $`b`$ is a complete future of $`p`$ when every event in the causal future $`F(p)`$ of $`p`$ is related to some event in $`b`$.
* A maximal antichain in the causal set $`𝒞`$ is an acausal set $`A`$ such that every event in $`(𝒞A)`$ is causally related to some event in $`A`$.

Similar definitions as the above of past, future, complete past, and complete future for a single event can be given for acausal sets:

* The causal past of $`a`$ is $`P(a)=_iP(q_i)`$ for all $`q_ia`$. Similarly, the causal future of $`a`$ is $`F(a)=_iF(q_i)`$ for all $`q_ia`$.
* An acausal set $`a`$ is a complete past of the acausal set $`b`$ if every event in $`P(b)`$ is related to some event in $`a`$.
* An acausal set $`c`$ is a complete future of $`b`$ if every event in $`F(b)`$ is related to some event in $`c`$.

Furthermore,

* Two acausal sets $`a`$ and $`b`$ are a complete pair when $`a`$ is a complete past of $`b`$ and $`b`$ is a complete future of $`a`$.
* Two acausal sets $`a`$ and $`b`$ are a full pair when they are a complete pair and every event in $`a`$ is related to every event in $`b`$.
* Two acausal sets $`a`$ and $`b`$ cross when some of the events in $`a`$ are in the future of $`b`$ and some are in its past.

## 3 The poset of acausal sets

The set of acausal sets within a given causal set $`𝒞`$ is a partially ordered set if we define the relation $`ab`$ to mean that $`a`$ is a complete past of $`b`$ and $`b`$ is a complete future of $`a`$. Reflecting the properties of the underlying causal set, the relation $``$ is reflexive, transitive and antisymmetric. Let us call this poset $`𝐀`$.

It is on this poset of acausal sets that we will base the quantum version of the causal histories. Its properties, therefore, are important constraints on the corresponding quantum history. The main property of $`𝐀`$ that characterises the kind of quantum theory we will obtain in this paper is that, given acausal sets $`a,b`$ and $`c`$, the following holds ($`R`$ means either $``$ or $``$):

$$\text{If }aRc,bRc,\text{ and }a,b\text{ do not cross, then }aRb.$$
(1)   
That is, given some acausal set $`c𝐀`$, all the acausal sets that are related to $`c`$ are also related to each other — except if they happen to cross. If $`a`$ and $`b`$ are “too close” to each other they may cross and then cannot be related by $``$. This means that for the chosen $`c`$ there is not a unique complete pair sequence. In selecting one of the possible sequences we need to make repeated choices of which of two crossing acausal sets to keep.

## 4 Quantum causal histories

We will now construct the quantum version, $`Q𝐀`$, of the poset $`𝐀`$. We will regard an event $`q`$ in the causal set as a Planck-scale quantum “event” with a Hilbert space $`H(q)`$ that stores its possible states. We require that $`H(q)`$ is finite-dimensional, which is consistent with the requirement that our causal sets be finite.

Choose an acausal set $`a=\{q_1,q_2,\mathrm{},q_n\}`$ in $`𝐀`$. Since all $`q_ia`$ are causally unrelated to each other, standard quantum mechanics dictates that the Hilbert space of $`a`$ is

$$H(a)=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}H(q_i).$$
(2)   
That is, we have a tensor product Hilbert space in $`Q𝐀`$ for each acausal set in $`𝐀`$.

When two acausal sets are related, $`ab`$, there needs to be an evolution operator between the corresponding Hilbert spaces:

$$E_{ab}:H(a)H(b).$$
(3)   
We will impose one more condition on the causal histories that will make their present treatment simpler. We will only consider posets $`𝐀`$ with the following property:

$$\text{ If }ab,\text{dim}H(a)=\text{dim}H(b).$$
(4)   
This restriction is particularly convenient since it allows us to simply regard $`H(a)`$ and $`H(b)`$ as isomorphic and require that $`E_{ab}`$ is a unitary evolution operator.

The poset of acausal sets $`𝐀`$ is reflexive, transitive and antisymmetric. We would like to maintain these properties of the causal ordering in the quantum theory as analogous conditions on the evolution operators. (In other words, we want the quantum causal history to be a functor from the poset $`𝐀`$ to the category of Hilbert spaces.) The analogue of reflexivity is the existence of an operator $`E_{aa}=\mathrm{𝟏}_a:H(a)H(a)`$ for every acausal set $`a`$. $`E_{aa}`$ has to be the identity because any other operator from $`H(a)`$ to itself would have to be a new event. Transitivity in $`𝐀`$ implies that

$$E_{bc}E_{ab}=E_{ac}$$
(5)   
in $`Q𝐀`$. We will return to transitivity and its implications for $`𝐀`$ and $`Q𝐀`$ in section 6.

At each event $`q`$, there is an algebra of observables, the operators on $`H(q)`$. An observable $`\widehat{O}_a`$ at $`a`$ becomes an observable $`\widehat{O}_b`$ at $`b`$ by

$$\widehat{O}_b=E_{ab}\widehat{O}_aE_{ab}^{}.$$
(6)   
This completes the definition of the causal quantum histories we are concerned with. In the next section we discuss the evolution of states which is allowed in such histories. Then, in section 6, we will come back to the imposition of transitivity on the evolution operators, a strong condition that dictates the form of the resulting histories and their quantum cosmology interpretation.

## 5 Quantum evolution in $`Q𝐀`$

In this section we discuss the consequences of the definitions of quantum histories given above.

### 5.1 Products of complete pair sequences

Evolution maps between complete pairs that are themselves causally unrelated to each other may be composed in the standard way, like tensors. That is, consider complete pairs $`ab`$ and $`cd`$, with $`a`$ and $`b`$ unrelated to $`c`$ or $`d`$. Then construct the acausal sets $`ac`$ and $`bd`$, which form a new complete pair: $`(ac)(bd)`$. The evolution operator on the composites,

$$E_{(ac)(bd)}:H(a)H(c)H(b)H(d),$$
(7)   
is the product of the operators on the two pairs,

$$E_{(ac)(bd)}=E_{ab}E_{cd}.$$
(8)   
### 5.2 Projection operators

The causal structure of $`𝐀`$ means that a projection operator on $`H(a)`$ propagates to the future of $`a`$ in the following way. A projection operator

$$P_a:H(a)V(a)$$
(9)   
that reduces $`H(a)`$ to a subspace $`V(a)`$, can be extended to a larger acausal set $`ac`$. On $`H(a)H(c)`$, it is the new projection operator

$$P_{ac}=P_a\mathrm{𝟏}_c:H(a)H(c)V(a)H(c).$$
(10)   
By using the evolution operator $`E_{(ac)(bd)}=E_{ab}E_{cd}`$ on the enlarged projection operator we obtain a projection operator $`P_b1_d`$ on the future acausal set $`bd`$.

### 5.3 Evolution in $`𝐀`$ can be independent of $`𝒞`$

Consider a complete pair $`ab`$ in which $`a=a_1a_2`$ and $`b=b_1b_2`$. The corresponding Hilbert spaces are

$$H(a)=H(a_1)H(a_2)\text{and}H(b)=H(b_1)H(b_2),$$
(11)   
and $`E_{ab}`$ is the evolution operator that corresponds to the causal relation $`ab`$.

Choose some state $`|\psi H(a_1)`$ by acting on $`H(a_1)`$ with the projection operator $`|\psi \psi |`$. This implies that, in $`H(a)`$, we have chosen the state $`|\psi |\psi _{a_2}`$, for some $`|\psi _{a_2}H(a_2)`$, using the projection operator $`(|\psi \psi |)\mathrm{𝟏}_{a_2}`$. We can use $`E_{ab}`$ on this state to obtain the state

$$|\psi _b=E_{ab}\left(|\psi |\psi _{a_2}\right)$$
(12)   
in $`H(b)`$.

If, for any reason, we need to restrict our attention to $`b_2`$, we can trace over $`b_1`$ to find that the original state $`|\psi H(a_2)`$ gives rise to the density matrix:

$`\rho _\psi (b_2)`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Tr}_{b_1}|\psi _b\psi _b`$ (13)   
$`=`$ $`\text{Tr}_{b_1}\left[E_{ab}\left(|\psi \psi |\mathrm{𝟏}_{a_2}\right)E_{ab}^{}\right].`$ (14)   
At this point, the following question arises. What if $`a_1`$ is not in the causal past of $`b_2`$ and, for example, we have these causal relations:

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}\end{array}$$

Does the evolution we defined on $`Q𝐀`$ violate causality in the underlying causal set $`𝒞`$?

This question illuminates several features of the quantum causal histories. The very first thing to note is that we get the same acausal poset $`𝐀`$ for many different causal sets. The operator $`E_{ab}`$ refers to $`𝐀`$ and does not distiguish the different possible underlying causal sets.

There is a simple solution to the above apparent embarassment. Instead of promoting the events of the causal set to Hilbert spaces, we may attach the Hilbert spaces to the edges, and the evolution operators to the events. An event in the causal set, then, becomes an evolution operator from the tensor product of the Hilbert spaces on the edges ingoing to that event, to the tensor product of the outgoing ones. Since the set of ingoing and the set of outgoing edges to the same event are a full pair (i.e. a complete pair in which all events in the past acausal set are related to all the events in the future one), the above problem will not arise. Conceptually, this solution agrees with the intuition that events in the causal set represent change, and, therefore, in the quantum case they should be represented as operators. In section 7.2, we discuss the example of quantum causal histories with the Hilbert spaces on the edges for trivalent causal sets.

### 5.4 Propagation by a density matrix requires a complete pair

According to (14), given a state $`|\psi H(a)`$, we can obtain the density matrix $`\rho _\psi (b_2)`$ for the acausal set $`b_2`$ in the future of $`a`$. This uses the fact that $`b_2`$ is a subset of an acausal set $`b`$ that forms a complete pair with $`a`$.

Consider this configuration:

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}\end{array}$$

The initial acausal set is $`a=\{p_1,p_2\}`$. The acausal set $`w=\{p_3,p_4\}`$ is in the future of $`a`$. Given $`|\psi H(a)`$, can we obtain a density matrix on $`H(w)`$? The answer is no, since there is no acausal set that contains $`w`$ and is maximal in the future of $`a`$. (The problem is the $`p_2p_7`$ relation.)

There are, therefore, acausal sets in the future of $`a`$ which cannot be reached by the evolution map $`E`$.

## 6 Directed coarse-graining

The main idea in this paper is that the quantum version of some causal history is a collection of Hilbert spaces connected by evolution operators that respect the structure of the poset $`𝐀`$ we started with. For this reason, in section 4, we imposed reflexivity, transitivity and antisymmetry to the operators $`E_{ab}`$.

Transitivity is a strong condition on the quantum history. One should keep in mind that it was first imposed on causal sets because it holds for the causal structure of Lorentzian spacetimes. Significantly, it does not just encode properties of the ordering of events but also the fact that a Lorentzian manifold is a point set. In general relativity, an event is a point and this has been imported in the causal set approach.

To analyse this a little further, let us introduce a notation that indicates when two events $`p`$ and $`q`$ are related by a shortest causal relation, i.e., no other event occurs after $`p`$ and before $`q`$. This is the covering relation:

> $``$ The event $`q`$ covers $`p`$ if $`pq`$ and there is no other event $`r`$ with $`prq`$. We denote this by $`pq`$.

The following are worth noting. For a finite causal set, transitivity means that the order relation determines, and is determined by, the covering relation, since $`pq`$ is equivalent to a finite sequence of covering relations $`p=p_1p_2\mathrm{}p_n=q`$. On the other hand, in the continuum (for example the real line $`𝐑`$) there are no pairs $`p,q`$ such that $`pq`$ . Hence, in a continuum spacetime, it is simply not meaningful to consider an ordering that is not transitive. Non-transitive ordering requires distinguishing between the covering relations and the resulting transitive ones. This distinction is not possible in the continuum case.

In short, for events that are points, it is sensible to expect that if $`p`$ leads to $`q`$ and $`q`$ to $`r`$, then $`r`$ is in the future of $`p`$. If, however, the events were (for example) spacetime regions of some finite volume, with overlaps, then it is unclear whether transitivity would hold. (See also section 2.4 in .) In the causal histories we consider here, an event is a Hilbert space. It is, therefore, an open question whether it is sensible to impose reflexivity, transitivity and antisymmetry on the ordering of the Hilbert spaces. We choose to first impose them, then find what the implications are, and if they are unphysical, go back and check which of the three conditions should not be maintained in a quantum causal ordering.

On the positive side, there is a very interesting advantage to maintaining transitivity. Using (5), we have the benefit of a directed coarse-graining invariance of the quantum history. For example, if we are handed

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}\end{array}$$

and need to go from $`H(p_1)H(p_2)`$ to $`H(p_3)H(p_4)H(p_5)`$, we can reduce it to

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}\end{array}.$$

Clearly, several initial graphs will give the same coarse-grained graph. We return to this in section 8.

It is very interesting to note that the coarse-graining implied by transitivity can be used to improve the propagation of density matrices that we discussed in section 5.4. We can coarse-grain the causal set depicted in (5.4) by considering the events $`p_3,p_4,p_5,p_6,p_7`$ to be the acausal set $`\overline{w}`$. This is a coarse-graining in the sense that we ignore any causal relations between these events. We then obtain:

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}\end{array}.$$

In this causal set, $`a`$ and $`\overline{w}`$ are a complete pair. It is then possible to use an evolution operator $`E_{a\overline{w}}`$ to take the state $`|\psi H(a)`$ to a state in $`H(\overline{w})`$ and then trace over $`(\overline{w}w)`$ to obtain a density matrix on $`H(w)`$.

## 7 Examples

In this section, we provide two examples of the quantum causal histories we defined in section 4.

### 7.1 Discrete Newtonian evolution

A discrete Newtonian history is a universe with a preferred time and foliation. It is represented by a poset $`𝐀`$ which is a single complete pair sequence:

$$\mathrm{}a_na_{n+1}a_{n+2}\mathrm{}.$$
(15)   
The corresponding quantum history is then

$$\mathrm{}H_nH_{n+1}H_{n+2}\mathrm{}.$$
(16)   
with all the Hilbert spaces isomorphic to each other.

We can denote by $`E`$ the evolution operator from $`H_n`$ to $`H_{n+1}`$. Evolution from $`H_n`$ to $`H_m`$ is then given by

$$E_{nm}=E^{mn}.$$
(17)   
We may compare this universe to the standard one in quantum theory. There, there is a single Hilbert space for the entire universe and evolution is given by the unitary operator $`e^{iH\delta t}`$. In the above, there is a sequence of identical and finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Since evolution is by discrete steps, we may set $`\delta t=1`$. Then $`E=e^{iH}`$, for some hermitian operator $`H`$ and $`E_{nm}=e^{i(mn)H}`$.

### 7.2 A planar trivalent graph with Hilbert spaces on the edges

This example is a history with multifingered time . It is a planar trivalent graph with finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces living on its edges. Trivalent means either two ingoing and one outgoing edges at a node, or two outgoing and one ingoing. We exclude nodes with no ingoing or no outgoing edges.

From a given planar trivalent causal set $`𝒞`$, we can obtain what we will call its edge-set, $`𝒞`$. This is a new graph which has the covering relations of $`𝒞`$ (the edges, not including any transitive ones) as its nodes. The covering relations in $`𝒞`$ are also ordered and these relations are the edges in $`𝒞`$. Figure 3 shows an example of a causal set and its edge-set.

We now take the poset $`𝐀`$ of $`𝒞`$ and construct a quantum history from it by assigning Hilbert spaces to the nodes of $`𝒞`$. The very interesting property of $`𝒞`$ is that it can be decomposed into pieces, generating evolution moves that take two events to one, or split one event into two. That is, $`𝒞`$ can be decomposed to these two full pairs:

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}\end{array}.$$

(This is generally the case, not only for trivalent graphs.) Such a decomposition is not possible in some general $`𝒞`$ and therefore, in view of the problem we encountered in 5.3 above, $`𝒞`$ provides an advantage over $`𝒞`$.

To be able to employ unitary evolution operators, we need $`\text{dim}H(e_1)=\text{dim}H(e_2)+\text{dim}H(e_3)`$ and $`\text{dim}H(e_4)+\text{dim}H(e_5)=\text{dim}H(e_6)`$. One can check that this can be done consistently for all the events in the causal set.

Although $`𝒞`$ is trivalent, the nodes of $`𝒞`$ have valence 2,3, or 4. The list of possible edges in $`𝒞`$ and the corresponding nodes in $`𝒞`$ is:

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}\end{array}$$

There is a substantial interpretational difference between Hilbert spaces on the (covering) causal relations and on the events. A state space on the edge $`pq`$ is most naturally interpeted as “the state space of $`p`$ as seen by $`q`$”. If there are two edges coming out of $`p`$, to $`q`$ and $`r`$, then there are two Hilbert spaces in $`𝒞`$, interpeted as the Hilbert space of $`p`$ as seen by $`q`$ and the Hilbert space of $`p`$ as seen by $`r`$. On the other hand, a Hilbert space placed on the event $`p`$ is absolute, in the sense that is independent of who is observing it.

## 8 Summing over histories

The quantum causal histories we discussed in this paper require a fixed poset $`𝐀`$. This is also necessary in the treatment of observers in a classical causal set universe in . Since there is no physical reason that some causal set should be preferred over all others, this restriction is unappealing. In this section we outline a “sum-over-histories” version of the evolution in section 4, which also applies to  and can be used in any further work on quantum observers inside the universe.

An acausal set is a set of points. We have considered causal sets where all events have at least one ingoing and one outgoing edge. Then, that $`a,b`$ are a complete pair $`ab`$ means that there is a directed graph with the set $`a`$ as its domain and the set $`b`$ as its codomain. Let us denote this graph by $`\gamma (a,b)`$. A graph with $`b`$ as its codomain and one with $`b`$ as its domain may be composed.

When $`𝐀`$ is given, there is one known graph $`\gamma (a,b)`$ connecting $`a`$ and $`b`$. If $`𝐀`$ is not fixed, we can sum over all graphs that we can fit between $`a`$ and $`b`$ (that have a finite number of nodes). This leads to a sum-over-histories version of the evolution in section 4.

Let us call $`E_{ab}^\gamma `$ the evolution operator (as in equation (3)) when the underlying graph is $`\gamma (a,b)`$. The transition amplitude from a state $`|\psi _aH(a)`$ to a state $`|\psi _bH(b)`$ for this particular graph is

$$A_\gamma =\psi _b|E_{ab}^\gamma |\psi _a.$$
(18)   
If the graph is not fixed, we may sum over all the possible ones:

$$A_{ab}=\underset{\gamma }{}\psi _b|E_{ab}^\gamma |\psi _a.$$
(19)   
Now note that transitivity defines equivalence classes of graphs between given acausal sets. Here is an example of a series of graphs that, by transitivity, have the same causal relations as far as $`a`$ and $`b`$ are concerned. Specifically, $`p_1,p_2,p_3p_4`$ and $`p_3p_4,p_5`$ in all of these graphs:

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{}\end{array}$$

All of the above correspond to the same evolution operator in (19).

It is intriguing to compare this to the triangulation invariance of topological quantum field theory. Transitivity can be intepreted as a directed triangulation invariance. We will return to this in future work.

## 9 Conclusions

We saw that it is possible to promote a causal set to a quantum one by taking the events to be finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. It is natural to consider tensor products of the Hilbert spaces on events that are spacelike separated. This led us to replace the causal set by the poset of acausal sets $`𝐀`$. We defined quantum histories with local unitary evolution maps between complete pairs in $`𝐀`$.<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2Discrete evolution by unitary operators is also considered by P. Zizzi, in work to appear.

We explored several of the features of these causal histories. A property of $`𝐀`$ is that it splits into distinct sequences of complete pairs. Consequently, this places restrictions on which Hilbert spaces can be reached from a given one. The conditions of reflexivity, antisymmetry and transitivity that hold for $`𝐀`$ were imposed on the quantum history as conditions on the evolution operators. The most interesting consequences were from transitivity, which gave rise to invariance under directed coarse-graining. This needs further investigation, since the physical assumption behind transitivity is pointlike events. It will be interesting to consider events which are extended objects and find what ordering is suitable in this case.

We were able to tensor together the Hilbert spaces for two acausal sets when they are spacelike separated and have no events in common. However, it is natural to consider cases where an acausal set is a subset of a larger one. It appears that, if we need to use acausal sets, we should enrich $`𝐀`$ with the inclusion relation, that is, use a poset with two ordering relations, causal ordering and spacelike inclusion. While this is straightforward in the plain causal set case, it becomes tricky in the quantum histories. For example, we may start from the acausal sets $`a=\{q_1,q_2\}`$ and $`a^{}=\{q_1,q_2,q_3\}`$. In the poset $`𝐀`$ we have $`aa^{}`$. In $`Q𝐀`$, the corresponding state spaces are $`H(a)=H(q_1)H(q_2)`$ and $`H(a^{})=H(q_1)H(q_2)H(q_3)`$. However, there is no natural way in which $`H(a)`$ is a subspace of $`H(a^{})`$. That is, the set inclusion relation is not directly preserved in the quantum theory.

In the quantum histories we discussed, we restricted the past and future Hilbert spaces to have the same dimension. This is the simplest case and needs to be generalised. A related issue is the properties of the individual Hilbert spaces. For example, if we employ the causal spin network models of , the evolution operators should respect the $`SU(2)`$ invariance of the state spaces. More generally, a discrete quantum field theory toy model can be constructed by inserting matter field algebras on the events. This will be addressed in future work.

Finally, we set up $`Q𝐀`$ having in mind a functor from a poset to Hilbert spaces, taking the elements and arrows of the poset into Hilbert spaces and operators which preserve the properties of the original poset, i.e. reflexivity, antisymmetry and transitivity. It is also possible to use graphs between sets of events (rather than a fixed causal set), as outlined in section 8. In this case, the quantum causal histories become similar to topological quantum field theory except, importantly, they are directed graphs (or triangulations). The coarse-graining invariance relations can be calculated for given fixed valence of the covering relations.

On the interpretational side, the main thing to note is that the causal history is a collection of Hilbert spaces which itself is not a Hilbert space. According to quantum theory, we can take tensor products of events that are not causally related. We cannot, for example, take the tensor product of all the Hilbert spaces in the history to be the Hilbert space of the entire history.<sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3Taking tensor products of all Hilbert spaces in the history is, however, exactly what is done in the consistent histories approach of Isham . As a result, the causal quantum cosmology is not described in terms of a wavefunction of the universe. Individual events (or observers on the events) can have states and wavefunctions but the entire universe does not. Further discussion of the interpretation of the quantum causal histories will appear in .

## Acknowledgment

I am grateful to Chris Isham for his comments on transitivity and the pointlike structure of spacetime. This paper has benefited from discussions with Lee Smolin on quantum theory and the interpetation of such histories as quantum cosmologies. I am also grateful to Sameer Gupta and Eli Hawkins for discussions on causal histories.

This work was supported by NSF grants PHY/9514240 and PHY/9423950 to the Pennsylvania State University and a gift from the Jesse Phillips Foundation.