theory (physics), model (physics)
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A basic characteristic of physics in the context of special relativity and general relativity is that causal influences on a Lorentzian manifold spacetime propagate in timelike or lightlike directions but not spacelike.
The fact that any two spacelike-separated regions of spacetime thus behave like independent subsystems is called causal locality or Einstein causality.
(One sometimes sees a further criterion to causality, that the causal influences in timelike and lightlike directions only propagate into the future, but this is not so simply dealt with; it probably only makes sense as a statement about coarse-grained entropy in statistical physics.)
For a formalization of this idea see for instance