Related papers: Nonsmooth backgrounds in quantum field theory
We compute the vacuum energy of a scalar field rotating with angular velocity $\Omega$ on a disk of radius $R$ and with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The rotation is introduced by a metric obtained by a Galilean transformation from a rest…
We derive the first six coefficients of the heat kernel expansion for the electromagnetic field in a cavity by relating it to the expansion for the Laplace operator acting on forms. As an application we verify that the electromagnetic…
We review and present full detail of the Feynman diagram - based and heat-kernel method - based calculations of the simplest nonlocal form factors in the one-loop contributions of a massive scalar field. The paper has a pedagogical and…
We present a systematic study of one-loop quantum corrections in scalar effective field theories from a geometric viewpoint, emphasizing the role of field-space curvature and its renormalisation. By treating the scalar fields as coordinates…
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 obtain an hybrid expression for the heat-kernel, and from that the density of the free energy, for a minimally coupled scalar field in a Schwarzschild geometry at finite temperature. This gives us the zero-point energy density as a…
In a previous publication, we have constructed the Schr\"odinger functional in Wilson's lattice QCD. It was found that the naive continuum limit leads to a well-defined classical continuum theory. Starting from the latter, a formal…
Effects due to vacuum fluctuations in a semi-classical model of a massless scalar field interacting with a rotating ring are investigated by introducing a collective coordinate for the motion of the background potential. The model is solved…
Quantum vacuum energy has been known to have observable consequences since 1948 when Casimir calculated the force of attraction between parallel uncharged plates, a phenomenon confirmed experimentally with ever increasing precision. Casimir…
Recent progress in quantum field theory and quantum gravity relies on mixed boundary conditions involving both normal and tangential derivatives of the quantized field. In particular, the occurrence of tangential derivatives in the boundary…
We introduce the notion of background independent quantum field theory. The distinguishing feature of this theory is that the dynamics can be formulated without recourse to a background metric structure. We show in a simple model how the…
Heat kernel methods are useful for studying properties of quantum gravity. We recompute here the first three heat kernel coefficients in perturbative quantum gravity with cosmological constant to ascertain which ones are correctly reported…
Effective hadron models commonly require the computation of functional determinants. In the static case these are one--loop vacuum polarization energies, known as Casimir energies. In this talk I will present general methods to efficiently…
This survey summarizes briefly results obtained recently in the Casimir energy studies devoted to the following subjects: i) account of the material characteristics of the media in calculations of the vacuum energy (for example, Casimir…
We use a functional approach to the Casimir effect in order to evaluate the exact vacuum energy for a real scalar field in $d+1$ dimensions, in the presence of backgrounds that, in a particular limit, impose Dirichlet boundary conditions on…
The heat-kernel expansion and $\zeta$-regularization techniques for quantum field theory and extended objects on curved space-times are reviewed. In particular, ultrastatic space-times with spatial section consisting in manifold with…
This is an introductory set of lectures on elliptic differential operators and boundary problems, and their associated spectral functions. The role of zeta functions and traces of heat kernels in the regularization of Casimir energies is…
We study the one loop renormalization in the most general metric-dilaton theory with the second derivative terms only. The general theory can be divided into two classes, models of one are equivalent to conformally coupled with gravity…
We study renormalizability aspects of the spectral action for the Yang-Mills system on a flat 4-dimensional background manifold, focusing on its asymptotic expansion. Interpreting the latter as a higher-derivative gauge theory, a…
A pedagogical introduction to the heat kernel technique, zeta function and Casimir effect is presented. Several applications are considered. First we derive the high temperature asymptotics of the free energy for boson fields in terms of…