Unidirectionality of time induced by T violation

Abstract

The physical nature of time has been an enigma for centuries. Despite the progress made in linking various arrows of time together, the underlying reason for the observed direction of time has remained a deep mystery. However, an increasing number of experiments are confirming a violation of time reversal invariance (T) in meson decay processes. T violation represents a fundamental break in the symmetry between the past and future. I show here that such processes induce destructive interference between different paths that the universe can take through time. The interference eliminates all paths except for two that represent continuously forwards and continuously backwards time evolution. These results illustrate that there are previously-unknown large-scale physical effects arising from the T violation processes in meson decay. Moreover these effects offer a solution to the age-old problem of the cause of the unidirectionality of time.