English

Gupta-Bleuler quantization for minimally coupled scalar fields in de Sitter space

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2009-10-31 v2

Abstract

We present in this paper a fully covariant quantization of the minimally-coupled massless field on de Sitter space. We thus obtain a formalism free of any infrared (e.g logarithmic) divergence. Our method is based on a rigorous group theoretical approach combined with a suitable adaptation (Krein spaces) of the Wightman-G\"{a}rding axiomatic for massless fields (Gupta-Bleuler scheme). We make explicit the correspondence between unitary irreducible representations of the de Sitter group and the field theory on de Sitter space-time. The minimally-coupled massless field is associated with a representation which is the lowest term of the discrete series of unitary representations of the de Sitter group. In spite of the presence of negative norm modes in the theory, no negative energy can be measured: expressions as nk1nk2...T00nk1nk2...\re\le n_{k_1}n_{k_2}...|T_{00}|n_{k_1}n_{k_2}...\re are always positive.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9904023,
  title  = {Gupta-Bleuler quantization for minimally coupled scalar fields in de Sitter space},
  author = {J-P. Gazeau and J. Renaud and M. V. Takook},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9904023},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

20 pages, appear in class. quantum grav

R2 v1 2026-07-22T12:56:26.567Z