Related papers: Thermalized Vacuum and Vacuum Effects
The Casimir force is a spectacular consequence of the existence of vacuum fluctuations and thus deserves a place in courses on quantum theory. We argue that the scattering approach within a one-dimensional field theory is well suited to…
In this paper, we study a free scalar field in a specific (1+1)-dimensional curved spacetime. By introducing an algebraic state that is locally Hadamard, we derive the renormalized Wightman function and explicitly calculate the covariantly…
In idealized treatments of the Unruh effect, a two-level atom is accelerated in a prescribed classical trajectory through the vacuum of a quantum field -- the Unruh bath -- which causes the atom's internal state to thermalize to a…
A uniformly accelerated system will get thermally excited due to interactions with the vacuum fluctuations of the quantum fields. This is the Unruh effect. Also a system accelerated in a circular orbit will be heated, but in this case…
For a quantum field in a thermal equilibrium state we discuss the group generated by time translations and the modular action associated with an algebra invariant under half-sided translations. The modular flows associated with the algebras…
The Gaussian wavefunctional approach is developed in thermofield dynamics. We manufacture thermal vacuum wavefunctional, its creation as well as annihilation operators,and accordingly thermo-particle excited states. For a (D+1)-dimensional…
A new approach to generalised Casimir type of problems is derived within the context of renormalisable quantum field theory (QFT). We study the simplest case of a massive fluctuating boson field coupled to a time-independent background…
We compute the effective Lagrangian of static gravitational fields interacting with thermal fields. Our approach employs the usual imaginary time formalism as well as the equivalence between the static and space-time independent external…
When an electromagnetic field is confined in a cavity of variable length, real photons may be generated from vacuum fluctuations due to highly nonadiabatic boundary conditions. The corresponding effective Hamiltonian is time-dependent and…
To comply with the equivalence principle, fields in curved spacetime can be quantized only in the neighborhood of each point, where one can construct a freely falling M i n k o w s k i frame with z e r o curvature. In each such frame, the…
We illustrate the analogue of the Unruh effect for a quantum system on the real line. Our derivation relies solely on basic elements of representation theory of the group of affine transformations without a notion of time or metric. Our…
Positive-energy solutions of the Klein-Gordon equation form a Hilbert space of holomorphic functions on the future tube. This domain is interpreted as an extended phase space for the associated classical particle, the extra dimensions being…
The fundamental vacuum state of quantum fields, related to Minkowski space, produces divergent fluctuations that must be suppressed in order to bring reality to the description of physical systems. As a consequence, negative vacuum…
In this paper we study a unified formalism for Thermal Quantum Field Theories, i.e., for the Matsubara approach, Thermo Field Dynamics and the Path Ordered Method. To do so, we employ a mechanism akin to the Hawking effect which explores a…
Zero-point energy is generally known to be unphysical. Casimir effect, however, is often presented as a counterexample, giving rise to a conceptual confusion. To resolve the confusion we study foundational aspects of Casimir effect at a…
We consider the problem of quantum field theory on the Bertotti-Robinson space-time, which arises naturally as the near horizon geometry of an extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black hole but can also arise in certain near-horizon limits of…
We construct second-quantized (field) theories on coset spaces of pseudo-unitary groups U(p,q)$. The existence of degenerated quantum vacua (coherent states of zero modes) leads to a breakdown of the original pseudo-unitary symmetry. The…
We study the vacuum fluctuations of a quantum scalar field in the presence of a thin and inhomogeneous flat mirror, modeled with a delta potential. Using Heat-Kernel techniques, we evaluate the Euclidean effective action perturbatively in…
Ever since Schwinger published his influential paper [J. Schwinger, Phys. Rev. \textbf{82}, 664 (1951)], it has been unanimously accepted that the vacuum is stable in the presence of an electromagnetic plane wave. However, we advance an…
The failure to calculate the vacuum energy is a central problem in theoretical physics. Presumably the problem arises from the insistent use of effective field theory reasoning in a context that is well beyond its intended scope. If one…