Related papers: Negative Energy Densities in Quantum Field Theory
According to the holographic bound, there is only a finite density of degrees of freedom in space when gravity is taken into account. Conventional quantum field theory does not conform to this bound, since in this framework, infinitely many…
For every local quantum field theory on a static, globally hyperbolic spacetime of arbitrary dimension, assuming the Reeh-Schlieder property, local preparability of states, and the existence of an energy density as operator-valued…
Quantum field theory predicts that vacuum energy (or what is the same, cosmological constant) should be 50-100 orders of magnitude larger than the existing astronomical limit. A very brief review of possible solutions of this problem is…
The condensed matter examples, in which the effective gravity appears in the low-energy corner as one of the collective modes of quantum vacuum, provide a possible answer to the question, why the vacuum energy is so small. This answer comes…
We treat the probability distributions for quadratic quantum fields, averaged with a Lorentzian test function, in four-dimensional Minkowski vacuum. These distributions share some properties with previous results in two-dimensional…
It is a maxim often stated, yet rarely illustrated, that the combination of special relativity and quantum mechanics necessarily leads to quantum field theory. An elementary illustration is provided, using the familiar particle in a box,…
A `quantum inequality' (a conjectured relation between the energy density of a free quantum field and the time during which this density is observed) has recently been used to rule out some of the macroscopic wormholes and warp drives. I…
When the vacuum fluctuation pressure is calculated directly from fundamental principles of quantum field theory, in the same manner as vacuum fluctuation energy density is commonly calculated, one finds it is not equal to the negative of…
A constant (spacetime-independent) $q$-field may play a crucial role for the cancellation of Planck-scale contributions to the gravitating vacuum energy density. We now show that a small spacetime-dependent perturbation of the equilibrium…
The use of atomic decay rates as a probe of sub-vacuum phenomena will be studied. Because electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations are essential for radiative decay of excited atomic states, decay rates can serve as a measure of the suppression…
Effective field theory is applied to finite-density systems with an unnaturally large scattering length, such as neutron matter. A new organizational scheme is identified and connected with an expansion in inverse powers of the number of…
A fundamental length is introduced into physics in a way which respects the principles of relativity and quantum field theory. This improves the properties of quantum field theory: divergences are removed. How to quantize gravity is also…
Zero-point fluctuations in the background of a cosmic string provide an opportunity to study the effects of topology in quantum field theory. We use a scattering theory approach to compute quantum corrections to the energy density of a…
The stress-energy tensor of the quantum vacuum is studied for the particular case of quantum electrodynamics (QED), that is a fictituous universe where only the electromagnetic and the electron-positron fields exist. The integrals involved…
The quartic-divergent vacuum energy poses an ultraviolet (UV) challenge (the cosmological constant problem) in probing the nature of dark energy. Here we try to evaluate the contribution of the vacuum energy to dark energy with a method of…
We consider a departure from standard quantum field theory, constructed so as to permit momentum eigenstates of both positive and negative energy. The resulting theory is intriguing because it brings about the cancellation of leading…
The possibility that the energy density of the Universe is dominated by a network of low-tension domain walls provides an alternative to the commonly discussed cosmological constant and scalar-field quintessence models of dark energy. We…
One might expect far away from physical black holes that quantum field quantisation performed in Minkowski space is a good approximation. Indeed, all experimental tests in particle colliders reveal no deviations so far. Nevertheless, the…
The concept of discrepancy plays an important role in the study of uniformity properties of point sets. For sets of random points, the discrepancy is a random variable. We apply techniques from quantum field theory to translate the problem…
It has been widely believed that, except in very extreme situations, the influence of gravity on quantum fields should amount to just small, sub-dominant contributions. This view seemed to be endorsed by the seminal results obtained over…