English

Instantaneous Temperatures \`a la Hadamard: Towards a generalized Stefan-Boltzmann law for curved spacetime

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2018-04-19 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

In the celebrated Unruh effect, we learn that a uniformly accelerating detector in a Minkowski vacuum spacetime registers a constant temperature. Building on prior work, we present a technique based on derivative couplings of the two-point Wightman function and the Hadamard renormalization procedure to define an instantaneous temperature for a massive scalar field, non-minimally coupled to gravity. We find the temperature contains local contributions from the acceleration of the detector, the curvature of spacetime, and the renormalized stress-energy tensor of the field. Our result, which can be considered as a generalized Stefan-Boltzmann law for curved spacetimes, agrees with the familiar expressions found in 4D Rindler, thermal Minkowski, and de Sitter.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1804.05382,
  title  = {Instantaneous Temperatures \`a la Hadamard: Towards a generalized Stefan-Boltzmann law for curved spacetime},
  author = {Aditya Dhumuntarao and José Tomás Gálvez Ghersi and Niayesh Afshordi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.05382},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

REVTeX 4.1, 10 pages, 2 figures. Considered effects from higher order terms in the quasi-local expansion. Minor typos fixed, conclusions revised