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Related papers: The Quantum Null Energy Condition in Curved Space

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The averaged null energy condition has been recently shown to hold for linear quantum fields in a large class of spacetimes. Nevertheless, it is easy to show by using a simple scaling argument that ANEC as stated cannot hold generically in…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2009-12-30 Ulvi Yurtsever

We establish a connection between the averaged null energy condition (ANEC) and the monotonicity of the renormalization group, by studying the light-ray operator $\int du T_{uu}$ in quantum field theories that flow between two conformal…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2023-09-27 Thomas Hartman , Grégoire Mathys

In discussions of Bousso's Covariant Entropy Bound, the Null Energy Condition is always assumed, as a sufficient {\em but not necessary} condition which helps to ensure that the entropy on any lightsheet shall necessarily be finite. The…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2010-12-23 Brett McInnes

The Quantum Focusing Conjecture (QFC) lies at the foundation of holography and semiclassical gravity. The QFC implies the Bousso bound and the Quantum Null Energy Condition (QNEC). The QFC also ensures the consistency of the quantum…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-08-19 Raphael Bousso , Elisa Tabor

The averaged null energy condition has known violations for quantum fields in curved space, even if one considers only achronal geodesics. Many such examples involve rapid variation in the stress-energy tensor in the vicinity of the…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2014-11-20 Douglas Urban , Ken D. Olum

We derive the classical null energy condition, understood as a constraint on the Ricci tensor, from the second law of thermodynamics applied locally to Bekenstein-Hawking entropy associated with patches of null congruences. The derivation…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2017-05-10 Maulik Parikh , Andrew Svesko

The restricted quantum focusing conjecture (rQFC) plays a central role in an axiomatic formulation of semiclassical gravity. Since much hinges on its validity, it is imperative to subject the rQFC to rigorous tests in novel settings. Here…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-10-28 Victor Franken , Sami Kaya , François Rondeau , Arvin Shahbazi-Moghaddam , Patrick Tran

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…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2015-05-12 Emilio Santos

We compute the local second variation of the von Neumann entropy of a region in theories with a gravity dual. For null variations our formula says that the diagonal part of the Quantum Null Energy Condition is saturated in every state, thus…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2018-10-17 Stefan Leichenauer , Adam Levine , Arvin Shahbazi-Moghaddam

The classic singularity theorems of General Relativity rely on energy conditions that can be violated in semiclassical gravity. Here, we provide motivation for an energy condition obeyed by semiclassical gravity: the smeared null energy…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2022-07-20 Ben Freivogel , Eleni-Alexandra Kontou , Dimitrios Krommydas

Considerable interest has recently been expressed regarding the issue of whether or not quantum field theory on a fixed but curved background spacetime satisfies the averaged null energy condition (ANEC). A comment by Wald and Yurtsever…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2009-10-22 Matt Visser

We consider the effective stress-energy tensors for the foreground and background sectors in ghost-free bimetric gravity. By considering the symmetries of the theory, we show that the foreground and background null energy conditions (NECs)…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2012-12-06 Valentina Baccetti , Prado Martin-Moruno , Matt Visser

In this paper we investigate the energy distribution of states of a linear scalar quantum field with arbitrary curvature coupling on a curved spacetime which fulfill some local thermality condition. We find that this condition implies a…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2008-11-26 Jan Schlemmer , Rainer Verch

We analyze the expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor and its fluctuations in quantum field theory on curved spacetimes $\langle T_{ab} \rangle$. A generally accepeted condition for the conceptual consistency of semiclassical…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-01-22 Alejandro Perez , Daniel Sudarsky

Investigating principles for storage of quantum information at finite temperature with minimal need for active error correction is an active area of research. We bear upon this question in two-dimensional holographic conformal field…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2022-11-04 Avik Banerjee , Tanay Kibe , Nehal Mittal , Ayan Mukhopadhyay , Pratik Roy

Averaged Null Energy Conditions (ANECs) hold in unitary quantum field theories. In conformal field theories, ANECs in states created by the application of the stress tensor to the vacuum lead to three constraints on the stress-tensor…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2023-05-31 Kuo-Wei Huang , Robin Karlsson , Andrei Parnachev , Samuel Valach

Quantum energy inequalities (QEIs) express restrictions on the extent to which weighted averages of the renormalized energy density can take negative expectation values within a quantum field theory. Here we derive, for the first time, QEIs…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2019-02-13 Christopher J. Fewster , Eleni-Alexandra Kontou

It is shown that the averaged null energy condition is fulfilled for a dense, translationally invariant set of vector states in any local quantum field theory in two-dimensional Minkowski spacetime whenever the theory has a mass gap and…

Mathematical Physics · Physics 2015-06-26 Rainer Verch

In the context of Einstein gravity, if the null energy condition (NEC) is satisfied, the energy density in expanding space-times always decreases while in contracting space-times the energy density grows and the universe eventually…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2016-07-04 Anna Ijjas , Justin Ripley , Paul J. Steinhardt

The classical singularity theorems of General Relativity rely on energy conditions that are easily violated by quantum fields. Here, we provide motivation for an energy condition obeyed in semiclassical gravity: the smeared null energy…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2021-10-25 Eleni-Alexandra Kontou , Ben Freivogel , Dimitrios Krommydas