A group at University of Queensland physicists have used light particles to simulate a key process that indicates how time travel might be possible despite well-known clashing theories.

Led by PhD student Martin Ringbauer, the research will add to the study of how time travel could be possible and how core scientific theory quantum mechanics might change in new environments.

The "grandfather paradox": Time travel raises the spectre of possibly changing life events. Credit:Universal Studios

The team was able to send single particles of light, known as photons, along a path in space-time that returns the travelling object to the same point at an earlier time, known as a closed timelike curve.

"This research is certainly not a demonstration of time travel or proof it's possible. We were starting from the point to discover what would happen if it was possible," Mr Ringbauer told Fairfax Media.