Local Temperature in Curved Spacetime
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2010-11-02 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
A physically meaningful local concept of temperature is introduced in quantum field theory on curved spacetime and applied to the example of a massless field on de Sitter space. It turns out in this model that the equilibrium (Gibbs) states which can be prepared by a geodesic observer have in general a varying temperature distribution in the neighborhood of the geodesic and may not even allow for a consistent thermal interpretation close to the horizon. This result, which can be traced back to the Unruh effect, illustrates the failure of a global notion of temperature in curved spacetime and reveals the need for a local concept, as presented here.
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/0608133,
title = {Local Temperature in Curved Spacetime},
author = {Detlev Buchholz and Jan Schlemmer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/0608133},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
9 pages, no figures; minor changes in the exposition; version as to appear in CQG