Overall view about construction of S-matrix

I have the feeling that the construction of S-matrix in TGD framework is now reasonably well-understood. I however realized that the chapter whose purpose was to give overall view about situation was hopelessly messy. The idea to represent all twists of the Odysseia leading to the final enlightment was not so good as it looked first. Therefore I decided to re-organize completely the chapter representing just the ideas and results. This process led to nice new results. In particular, thermodynamics becomes in zero energy ontology unavoidably an essential part of quantum theory. I glue below the abstract of the re-organized chapter Towards S-matrix of a book with same title.

The construction of S-matrix has been key challenge of quantum TGD from the very beginning when it had become clear that path integral approach and canonical quantization make no sense in TGD framework. My intuitive feeling that the problems are not merely technical has turned out to be correct. In this chapter the overall view about the construction of S-matrix is discussed. It is perhaps wise to summarize briefly the vision about S-matrix.

1. S-matrix defines entanglement between positive and negative energy parts of zero energy states. This kind of S-matrix need not be unitary unlike the U-matrix associated with unitary process forming part of quantum jump. There are several good arguments suggesting that that S-matrix cannot unitary but can be regarded as thermal S-matrix so that thermodynamics would become an essential part of quantum theory. In TGD framework path integral formalism is given up although functional integral over the 3-surfaces is present.

2. Almost topological QFT property of quantum allows to identify S-matrix as a functor from the category of generalized Feynman cobordisms to the category of operators mapping the Hilbert space of positive energy states to that for negative energy states: these Hilbert spaces are assignable to partonic 2-surfaces. Feynman cobordism is the generalized Feynman diagram having light-like 3-surfaces as lines glued together along their ends defining vertices as 2-surfaces. This picture differs dramatically from that of string models. There is a functional integral over the small deformations of Feynman cobordisms corresponding to maxima of Kähler function. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this result bringing category theory absolutely essential part of quantum TGD.
3. Imbedding space degrees of freedom seem to imply the presence of factor of type I beside HFF of type II₁ for which unitary S-matrix can define time-like entanglement coefficients. Only thermal S-matrix defines a normalizable zero energy state so that thermodynamics becomes part of quantum theory. One can assign to S-matrix a complex parameter whose real part has interpretation as interaction time and imaginary part as the inverse temperature. S-matrices and thus also quantum states in zero energy ontology possess a semigroup like structure and in the product time and inverse temperature are additive. This suggests that the cosmological evolution of temperature as T propto 1/t could be understood at the level of fundamental quantum theory.

4. S-matrix should be constructible as a generalization of braiding S-matrix in such a manner that the number theoretic braids assignable to light-like partonic 3-surfaces glued along their ends at 2-dimensional partonic 2-surfaces representing reaction vertices replicate in the vertex.

5. The construction of braiding S-matrices assignable to the incoming and outgoing partonic 2-surfaces is not a problem. The problem is to express mathematically what happens in the vertex. Here the observation that the tensor product of HFFs of type II is HFF of type II is the key observation. Many-parton vertex can be identified as a unitary isomorphism between the tensor product of incoming resp. outgoing HFFs. A reduction to HFF of type II₁ occurs because only a finite-dimensional projection of S-matrix in bosonic degrees of freedom defines a normalizable state. In the case of factor of type II_∞ only thermal S-matrix is possible without finite-dimensional projection and thermodynamics would thus emerge as an essential part of quantum theory.

6. HFFs of type III could also appear at the level of field operators used to create states but at the level of quantum states everything reduces to HFFs of type II₁ and their tensor products giving these factors back. If braiding automorphisms reduce to the purely intrinsic unitary automorphisms of HFFs of type III then for certain values of the time parameter of automorphism having interpretation as a scaling parameter these automorphisms are trivial. These time scales could correspond to p-adic time scales so that p-adic length scale hypothesis would emerge at the fundamental level. In this kind of situation the braiding S-matrices associated with the incoming and outgoing partons could be trivial so that everything would reduce to this unitary isomorphism: a counterpart for the elimination of external legs from Feynman diagram in QFT.

7. One might hope that all complications related to what happens for space-like 3-surfaces could be eliminated by quantum classical correspondence stating that space-time view about particle reaction is only a space-time correlate for what happens in quantum fluctuating degrees of freedom associated with partonic 2-surfaces. This turns out to be the case only in non-perturbative phase. The reason is that the arguments of n-point function appear as continuous moduli of Kähler function. In non-perturbative phases the dependence of the maximum of Kähler function on the arguments of n-point function cannot be regarded as negligible and Kähler function becomes the key to the understanding of these effects including formation of bound states and color confinement.

8. In this picture light-like 3-surface would take the dual role as a correlate for both state and time evolution of state and this dual role allows to understand why the restriction of time like entanglement to that described by S-matrix must be made. For fixed values of moduli each reaction would correspond to a minimal braid diagram involving exchanges of partons being in one-one correspondence with a maximum of Kähler function. By quantum criticality and the requirement of ideal quantum-classical correspondence only one such diagram would contribute for given values of moduli. Coupling constant evolution would not be however lost: it would be realized as p-adic coupling constant at the level of free states via the log(p) scaling of eigen modes of the modified Dirac operator.

9. A completely unexpected prediction deserving a special emphasis is that number theoretic braids replicate in vertices. This is of course the braid counterpart for the introduction of annihilation and creation of particles in the transition from free QFT to an interacting one. This means classical replication of the number theoretic information carried by them. This allows to interpret one of the TGD inspired models of genetic code in terms of number theoretic braids representing at deeper level the information carried by DNA. This picture provides also further support for the proposal that DNA acts as topological quantum computer utilizing braids associated with partonic light-like 3-surfaces (which can have arbitrary size). In the reverse direction one must conclude that even elementary particles could be information processing and communicating entities in TGD Universe.