  This report offers a modern perspective on the problem of negative energy,
based on a reexamination of the concept of time direction as it arises in a
classical and quantum-mechanical context. From this analysis emerges an
improved understanding of the general-relativistic stress-energy of matter as
being a manifestation of local variations in the energy density of zero-point
vacuum fluctuations. Based on those developments, a set of axioms is proposed
from which are derived generalized gravitational field equations which actually
constitute a simplification of relativity theory in the presence of
negative-energy matter and a non-zero cosmological constant. Important
clarifications are also achieved regarding the nature of the binary degrees of
freedom of matter in the final stages of a gravitational collapse. Those
results are then applied to provide original solutions to several long-standing
problems in cosmology, including the problem of the nature of dark matter and
dark energy, that of the origin of thermodynamic time asymmetry, and several
other issues traditionally approached using inflation theory. Finally, we draw
on those developments to provide significant new insights into the foundations
of quantum theory, regarding, in particular, the problem of quantum
non-locality, that of the emergence of time in quantum cosmology, as well as
the question of the persistence of quasiclassicality following decoherence.
