Reconciling Causality and Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics with Hamiltonian Causal Models
Causal modeling of physical temporal phenomena must handle interventions that act along trajectories, nonstationary induced laws, path-dependent effects, and feedback mediated by dynamics, all challenging in standard causal models. We introduce Hamiltonian Causal Models (HCMs), a trajectory-level framework in which observed variables interact with local environments and interventions act as controls of Hamiltonian mechanisms. HCMs separate immutable equations of motion from intervenable mechanisms and define causal effects as discrepancies between interventional path laws. A key motivation for HCMs is their natural interface with non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Entropy production quantifi...
| Authors | Dario Rancati, Max Welling, Francesco Locatello |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.LG |
| Published | 3 June 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 3 June 2026 |
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