Negative Energy Densities in Quantum Field Theory
Abstract
Quantum field theory allows for the suppression of vacuum fluctuations, leading to sub-vacuum phenomena. One of these is the appearance of local negative energy density. Selected aspects of negative energy will be reviewed, including the quantum inequalities which limit its magnitude and duration. However, these inequalities allow the possibility that negative energy and related effects might be observable. Some recent proposals for experiments to search for sub-vacuum phenomena will be discussed. Fluctuations of the energy density around its mean value will also be considered, and some recent results on a probability distribution for the energy density in two dimensional spacetime are summarized.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0911.3597,
title = {Negative Energy Densities in Quantum Field Theory},
author = {L. H. Ford},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0911.3597},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
10 pages, 2 figures. Contribution to proceedings of Quantum Field Theory under the Influence of External Conditions (QFEXT09), Norman, Oklahoma, September 2009