Massive Unruh particles cannot be directly observed
Quantum Physics
2018-03-21 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
We show that massive particles created in a relativistically accelerated reference frame, as predicted by the Unruh effect, can only be found in a tiny layer above the event horizon, whose thickness corresponds to a single Compton wavelength. This is beyond the reach of any detector and suggests that the Unruh effect may not ever be directly observed for massive fields. The case of massless particles is also examined, for which qualitatively different behaviour is observed in a low-acceleration regime, suggesting that an observation of the Unruh effect for massless particles is more promising.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1711.05179,
title = {Massive Unruh particles cannot be directly observed},
author = {Filip Kiałka and Alexander R. H. Smith and Mehdi Ahmadi and Andrzej Dragan},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.05179},
year = {2018}
}