A New Formulation of the Initial Value Problem for Nonlocal Theories

Understand

There are a number of reasons to entertain the possibility that locality is violated on microscopic scales, for example through the presence of an infinite series of higher derivatives in the fundamental equations of motion.

• This type of nonlocality leads to improved UV behaviour, novel cosmological dynamics and is a generic prediction of string theory.
• On the other hand, fundamentally nonlocal models are fraught with complications, including instabilities and complications in setting up the initial value problem.
• We study the structure of the initial value problem in an interesting class of nonlocal models.