Related papers: The Smeared Null Energy Condition
The averaged null energy condition (ANEC) requires that the integral over a complete null geodesic of the stress-energy tensor projected onto the geodesic tangent vector is never negative. This condition is sufficient to prove many…
The quantum null energy condition (QNEC) is a conjectured bound on components $(T_{kk} = T_{ab} k^a k^b$) of the stress tensor along a null vector $k^a$ at a point $p$ in terms of a second $k$-derivative of the von Neumann entropy $S$ on…
This review summarizes the current status of the energy conditions in general relativity and quantum field theory. We provide a historical review and a summary of technical results and applications, complemented with a few new derivations…
We give a simplified approach to Kunzinger & Saemann's theory of Lorentzian length spaces in the globally hyperbolic case; these provide a nonsmooth framework for general relativity. We close a gap in the regularly localizable setting, by…
We investigate whether the null energy, averaged over some region of spacetime, is bounded below in QFT. First, we use light-sheet quantization to prove a version of the "Smeared Null Energy Condition" (SNEC) proposed in [1], applicable for…
In a previous paper, a bound on the negative energy density seen by an arbitrary inertial observer was derived for the free massless, quantized scalar field in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. This constraint has the form of an…
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…
The self-gravitational correction to a localized spherically-symmetric static energy distribution is obtained from energetically self-consistent upgraded Newtonian gravitational theory. The result is a gravitational redshift factor that is…
We point out a weak side of the commonly used determination of scalar cosmological perturbations lying in the fact that their average values can be nonzero for some matter distributions. It is shown that introduction of the finite-range…
A possible connection between the energy W of the vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields and gravity in "empty space" is conjectured in this paper using a natural cutoff of high momenta with the help of the gravitational radius of the vacuum…
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…
Although negative energy densities are predicted by relativistic quantum field theories, I present an argument that an "operational" positivity still holds: the energy in a region, plus the energy of an isolated device which traps or…
In hep-th/0506040 we discussed a classically constrained model of gravity. This theory contains known solutions of General Relativity (GR), and admits solutions that are absent in GR. Here we study cosmological implications of some of these…
Quantum weak energy inequalities (QWEI) provide state-independent lower bounds on averages of the renormalised energy density of a quantum field. We derive QWEIs for the electromagnetic and massive spin-one fields in globally hyperbolic…
In this paper we argue that classical, asymptotically AdS spacetimes that arise as states in consistent ultraviolet completions of Einstein gravity coupled to matter must satisfy an infinite family of positive energy conditions. To each…
A dynamically preferred quasi-local definition of gravitational energy is given in terms of the Hamiltonian of a `2+2' formulation of general relativity. The energy is well-defined for any compact orientable spatial 2-surface, and depends…
The present paper examines the validity of energy bounds in a modified theory of gravity involving non-minimal coupling of torsion scalar and perfect fluid matter. In this respect, we formulate the general inequalities of energy conditions…
Quantum inequalities bound the extent to which weighted time averages of the renormalized energy density of a quantum field can be negative. They have mostly been proved in flat spacetime, but we need curved-spacetime inequalities to…
Using Visser's semi-analytical model for the stress-energy tensor corresponding to the conformally coupled massless scalar field in the Unruh vacuum, we examine, by explicitly evaluating the relevant integrals over half-complete geodesics,…
The gravitational positivity bound gives quantitative "swampland'' constraints on low-energy effective theories inside theories of quantum gravity. We give a comprehensive discussion of this bound for those interested in applications to…