Time, (Inverse) Temperature and Cosmological Inflation as Entanglement

Abstract

We present arguments to the effect that time and temperature can be viewed as a form of quantum entanglement. Furthermore, if temperature is thought of as arising from the quantum mechanical tunneling probability this then offers us a way of dynamically "converting" time into temperature based on the entanglement between the transmitted and reflected modes. We then show how similar entanglement-based logic can be applied to the dynamics of cosmological inflation and discuss the possibility of having observable effects of the early gravitational entanglement at the level of the universe.