Quantum Nonlocality, Stellar Evolution and the Integrity of the Universe

Quarks and leptons could be considered as essentially nonlocal objects, a kind of collective effect. Thus, in the simplest case, in an electron-positron pair produced by an energetic photon, the two particles would presumably bear the touch of their common origin and move in sync during their lifetime, as if they were the opposite ends of a string; this string would have its oscillation modes observable as gauge fields. A more complex system would be similarly pictured as an ensemble of many particles, with many connecting "strings", assuming multiple "oscillation modes". The observable interactions reconnect the "strings", revealing some other collective modes, but do not change an underlying sea of particles.

Normally, once established, the connections between the particles in a group will always be preserved (accounting for possible rearrangements), just because the relative velocities of the particles can never be greater than the speed of light. However, one could also consider essential nonlocality, when correllations between the particles get established through space-like intervals due to specifically quantum effects, like those assumed by the Bell theorems. In this case, the connecting "strings" would become virtual, that is, their oscillation modes (associated with elementary particles and gauge fields) would be not observable; this could explain the purely virtual existence of quarks and gluons. Quantum links of this type could also be responsible for the processes of macroevolution in the Universe.

Thus, one might suspect that matter in the stellar cores (and in the central regions of other massive objects) should be much more correlated than in relatively rarefied forms observed in the outer shells of the stars and in the outer space (including planets). Within the stars, elementary particles do not necessarily behave in the ordinary way, much like an atomic nucleus is not a mere combination of protons and neutrons, but rather a complex superposition of the both. In quantum chromodynamics, a nucleus is treated as one extra-heavy elementary particle, a collective state of many quarks and gluons; similarly, one could fancy something like a quark star. In the assumption that at least some quarks of a stellar core are connected to the quarks inside other stars by virtual "strings", the processes in distant stars can be synchronized, and the evolution of one star thus becomes dependent on another. The collective oscillation modes of such "macrostrings" could influence the evolution of individual stars as well.

With all that, one could seek for different forms of evolutional synchronicity. The direct evidence would come from various correlated periodic processes (say, synchronized pulsars). On a larger scale, the phases of stellar evolution may be controlled by the states of the neighboring stars, or even the overall state of the Universe as a whole. The regularities of stellar distribution in space could be explained in that line, including the possible origin and typology of galaxies. In any case, the picture of the stars connected by virtual "strings" and developing in sync provides more room for theorizing than a simplistic picture of randomly scattered stars evolving on their own.

A fundamental corollary from the concept of interconnected Universe is that the development of the Universe must be correlated on all the levels, up to life and reason. The appearance of life in some part of the Universe is in no way random, being prepared by the processes of macroevolution. In the same way, when life develops to the level of consciousness, this will be interpreted as a manifestation of the universal integrity. Moreover, the very ability of human reason to grasp phenomena incomparable in scale to the bodies effectuating a specific form of conscious existence might be attributed to quantum interconnection between very distant parts of the world, consciousness being just a higher-level form of collective motion, a kind of eigenstate of a "superstring" connecting the whole Universe into an integral world.

28 Sep 1998