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An accelerated particle sees the Minkowski vacuum as thermally excited, which is called the Unruh effect. Due to an interaction with the thermal bath, the particle moves stochastically like the Brownian motion in a heat bath. It has been…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2011-02-24 Satoshi Iso , Yasuhiro Yamamoto , Sen Zhang

We address the problem of thermodynamic equilibrium with constant acceleration along the velocity field lines in a quantum relativistic statistical mechanics framework. We show that for a free scalar quantum field, after vacuum subtraction,…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2018-04-25 F. Becattini

Whenever an experiment can be described classically, quantum physics must predict the same outcome. Intuitively, there is nothing quantum about an accelerating observer travelling through a vacuum. It is therefore not surprising that many…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-03-24 Sara Kanzi , Daniel Hodgson , Almut Beige

Detecting thermal Unruh radiation from accelerated electrons has presented a formidable challenge due not only to technical difficulties but also for lack of conceptual clarity about what is actually seen by a laboratory observer. We give a…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-05-09 Gianluca Gregori , Giacomo Marocco , Subir Sarkar , Robert Bingham , Charles Wang

We identify the relativistic-fluid counterpart of the Unruh effect, in which a comoving probe measures a Thermodynamic Unruh temperature. Frame changes in first-order hydrodynamics are recast as a local, time-dependent hyperbolic rotation…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2025-11-27 Eren Erberk Erkul

It has been proved in the context of quantum fields in Minkowski spacetime that the vacuum state is a thermal state according to uniformly accelerated observers -- a seminal result known as the Unruh effect. Recent claims, however, have…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2019-07-16 Cesar A. Uliana Lima , Frederico Brito , José A. Hoyos , Daniel A. T. Vanzella

We study the influence of the thermal background on the existence of the anti-Unruh effect. For the massless scalar field, we present that the anti-Unruh effect can appear when the detector is accelerated in the thermal field, which is…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2022-05-30 Yongjie Pan , Baocheng Zhang

We propose a test for the circular Unruh effect using certain atoms - fluorine and oxygen. For these atoms the centripetal acceleration of the outer shell electrons implies an effective Unruh temperature in the range 1000 - 2000 K. This…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2012-10-12 Navid Rad , Douglas Singleton

In this work we consider the ontological status of the Unruh effect. Is it just a formal mathematical result? Or the temperature detected by an accelerating observer can lead to real physical effects such as phase transition. In order to…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2017-03-17 Antonio Dobado

We consider a particle detector model on 1+1-dimensional Minkowski space-time that is accelerated by a constant external acceleration a. The detector is coupled to a massless scalar test field. Due to the Unruh effect, this detector becomes…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2013-05-14 Franz Thoma

We study the Unruh effect for an observer with a finite lifetime, using the thermal time hypothesis. The thermal time hypothesis maintains that: (i) time is the physical quantity determined by the flow defined by a state over an observable…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2009-11-07 P. Martinetti , C. Rovelli

Unruh effect states that the vacuum of a quantum field theory on Minkovski space-time looks like a thermal state for an eternal uniformly accelerated observer. Adaptation to the non eternal case causes a serious problem: if the…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2008-11-26 P. Martinetti

The Unruh effect refers to the thermal fluctuations a detector experiences while undergoing linear motion with uniform acceleration in a Minkowski vacuum. This thermality can be demonstrated by tracing the vacuum state of the field over the…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2013-12-10 Jason Doukas , Shih-Yuin Lin , B. L. Hu , Robert B. Mann

A great deal of evidence has been mounting over the years showing a deep connection between acceleration, radiation, and the Unruh effect. Indeed, the fact that the Unruh effect can be codified in the Larmor radiation emitted by the charge…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2022-09-07 Felipe Portales-Oliva , André G. S. Landulfo

We revisit the Unruh effect within a general framework based on direct, probability-level calculations. We rederive the transition rate of a uniformly accelerating Unruh-DeWitt monopole detector coupled to a massive scalar field, from both…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-01-13 Robert Dickinson , Jeff Forshaw , Ross Jenkinson , Peter Millington

The study of the Unruh effect naturally raises the interest for a deeper understanding of the analogy between temperature and acceleration. A recurring question is whether an accelerated frame can be distinguished from an inertial thermal…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2020-07-01 A. P. C. M. Lima , G. Alencar , R. R. Landim

The thermal radiance felt by a uniformly accelerated detector/oscillator/atom--the Unruh effect-- is often mistaken to be some emitted radiation detectable by an observer/probe/sensor. Here we show by an explicit calculation of the energy…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 B. L. Hu , Alpan Raval

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…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2025-11-25 D. Jaffino Stargen , Vivishek Sudhir

In quantum field theory, the vacuum is popularly considered to be a complex medium populated with virtual particle + antiparticle pairs. To an observer experiencing uniform acceleration, it is generally held that these virtual particles…

General Physics · Physics 2026-04-28 Alexandre Deur , Stanley J. Brodsky , Craig D. Roberts , Balša Terzić

A detector undergoing uniform acceleration $a$ in a vacuum field responds just as though it were immersed in thermal radiation of temperature $T=\hbar a/2\pi k c$. A simple, intuitive derivation of this result is given for the case of a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-10 Paul M. Alsing , Peter W. Milonni