Search Results (15)

In quantum field theory, the vacuum is popularly considered to be a complex medium populated with virtual particle + antiparticle pairs. To an observer experiencing uniform acceleration, it is generally held that these virtual particles become real, appearing as a gas at a temperature that grows with the acceleration. This is the Unruh effect. However, it has been shown that vacuum complexity is an artifact produced by treating quantum field theory in a manner that does not manifestly enforce causality. Choosing a quantization approach that patently enforces causality, the quantum field theory vacuum is barren, bereft even of virtual particles. We show that acceleration has no effect on a trivial vacuum; hence, there is no Unruh effect in such a treatment of quantum field theory. Since the standard calculations suggesting an Unruh effect are formally consistent, insofar as they have been completed, there must be a canceling contribution that is omitted in the usual analyses. We argue that it is the dynamical action of conventional Lorentz transformations on the structure of an Unruh detector. Full article

We propose a modified relativistic dynamics framework for a particle undergoing a proper acceleration a immersed in a vacuum background of temperature T. Within this framework, the Unruh effect dictates that the accelerated observer perceives the vacuum as a thermal bath. By associating the Planck temperature $T_P$ and its corresponding energy scale $E_P$ with an invariant, maximal Planck acceleration $a_P$, we reformulate the dynamics under the aegis of Doubly Special Relativity (DSR). In this setting, the acceleration-induced thermal background acts as a physical preferred frame, necessitating a quantum–gravitational correction to the mass–energy equivalence $E=m{c}^2$. This derivation yields the Magueijo–Smolin dispersion relation, here reinterpreted through a cosmological–thermodynamic lens, where the thermal vacuum emerges dynamically from particle acceleration. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the speed of light diverges as $T\to T_P$ in the early universe, driven by inflation at the Planck acceleration scale. This rapid decay of c during the inflationary epoch provides a novel mechanism for Varying Speed of Light (VSL) theories, offering a robust alternative for resolving the horizon problem. Full article

We present a simple argument to derive the transformation of the quantum stochastic calculus formalism between inertial observers and derive the quantum open system dynamics for a system moving in a vacuum (or, more generally, a coherent) quantum field under the usual Markov approximation. We argue, however, that, for uniformly accelerated open systems, the formalism must break down as we move from a Fock representation over the algebra of field observables over all of Minkowski space to the restriction regarding the algebra of observables over a Rindler wedge. This leads to quantum noise having a unitarily inequivalent non-Fock representation: in particular, the latter is a thermal representation at the Unruh temperature. The unitary inequivalence is ultimately a consequence of the underlying flat noise spectrum approximation for the fundamental quantum stochastic processes. We derive the quantum stochastic limit for a uniformly accelerated (two-level) detector and establish an open system description of the relaxation to thermal equilibrium at the Unruh temperature. Full article

We consider a scalar QED (quantum electrodynamics) model for the frictional force and the momentum fluctuations of a polarizable particle in thermal equilibrium with radiation or in hyperbolic motion in a vacuum. In the former case the loss of particle kinetic energy due to the frictional force is compensated by the increase in kinetic energy associated with the momentum diffusion, resulting in the Planck distribution when it is assumed that the average kinetic energy satisfies the equipartition theorem. For hyperbolic motion in vacuum the frictional force and the momentum diffusion are similarly consistent with an equilibrium with a Planckian distribution at the temperature $T=\hslash a/2\pi k_{B}c$. The quantum fluctuations of the momentum imply that it is only the average acceleration a that is constant when the particle is subject to a constant applied force. Full article

In this work, we study the existence of horizons in circular accelerated motions and its consequences. One particular case is the existence of two horizons in any uniform circular motion. The radiation of the Poincaré invariant vacuum is related to the spontaneous breakdown of the conformal symmetry in Quantum Field Theory The main consequence of the existence of these horizons is the Unruh radiation coming from such horizons. This consequence allows us to study the possible experimental detection of the Unruh radiation in such motions. The radiation of the Poincaré invariant vacuum is related to the spontaneous breakdown of the conformal symmetry in Quantum Field Theory. This radiation is associated with an effective temperature that can be detected using an Unruh–DeWitt detector. In fact, this effective temperature at the relativistic limit depends linearly with respect to the proper acceleration. However, in general, this dependence is not linear, contrary of what happens in the classical Unruh effect. In the relativistic limit and high density case, the uniform circular motion becomes a rotating black hole. This allows for future studies of pre-black hole configurations. Full article

After finding a solution for the Hayward regular black hole (HRBH) in massive gravity, we embed the (3+1)-dimensional HRBHs both in massless and in massive gravities into (5+2)- and (6+3)-dimensional Minkowski spacetimes, respectively. Here, massive gravity denotes that a graviton acquires a mass holographically by broken momentum conservation in the HRBH. The original HRBH has no holographically added gravitons, which we call ‘massless’. Making use of newly found embedding coordinates, we obtain desired Unruh temperatures and compare them with the Hawking and local fiducial temperatures, showing that the Unruh effect for a uniformly accelerated observer in a higher-dimensional flat spacetime is equal to the Hawking effect for a fiducial observer in a black hole spacetime. We also obtain freely falling temperatures of the HRBHs in massless and massive gravities seen by freely falling observers, which remain finite even at the event horizons while becoming the Hawking temperatures in asymptotic infinity. Full article

A gas in a box is perhaps the most important model system studied in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Usually, studies focus on the gas, whereas the box merely serves as an idealized confinement. The present article focuses on the box as the central object and develops a thermodynamic theory by treating the geometric degrees of freedom of the box as the degrees of freedom of a thermodynamic system. Applying standard mathematical methods to the thermodynamics of an empty box allows equations with the same structure as those of cosmology and classical and quantum mechanics to be derived. The simple model system of an empty box is shown to have interesting connections to classical mechanics, special relativity, and quantum field theory. Full article

The Hawking temperature for a Schwarzschild black hole is $T=1/8\pi M$, where M is the black hole mass. This formula is derived for a fixed Schwarzschild background metric, where the mass M could be arbitrary small. Note that, for vanishing $M\to 0$, the temperature T becomes infinite. However, the Schwarzschild metric itself is regular when the black hole mass M tends to zero; it is reduced to the Minkowski metric, and there are no reasons to believe that the temperature becomes infinite. We point out that this discrepancy may be due to the fact that the Kruskal coordinates are singular in the limit of the vanishing mass of the black hole. To elucidate the situation, new coordinates for the Schwarzschild metric are introduced, called thermal coordinates, which depend on the black hole mass M and the parameter b. The parameter b specifies the motion of the observer along a special trajectory. The thermal coordinates are regular in the limit of vanishing black hole mass M. In this limit, the Schwarzschild metric is reduced to the Minkowski metric, written in coordinates dual to the Rindler coordinates. Using the thermal coordinates, the Schwarzschild black hole radiation is reconsidered, and it is found that the Hawking formula for temperature is valid only for large black holes, while for small black holes, the temperature is $T=1/2\pi (4M+b)$. The thermal observer in Minkowski space sees radiation with temperature $T=1/2\pi b$, similar to the Unruh effect with non-constant acceleration. The thermal coordinates for more general spherically symmetric metrics, including the Reissner–Nordstrom, de Sitter, and anti-de Sitter, are also considered. In these coordinates, one sees a Planck distribution with constant temperature. One obtains that the thermal Planck distribution of massless particles is not restricted to the cases of black holes or constant acceleration, but is valid for any spherically symmetric metric written in thermal coordinates. Full article

In this review, we collect, for the first time, old and new research results, and present future perspectives on how hadron production, in high-energy scattering processes, can experimentally probe fundamental questions of quantum gravity. The key observations that ignited the link between the two arenas are the so-called “color-event horizon” of quantum chromodynamics, and the (de)accelerations involved in such scattering processes. Both phenomena point to the Unruh (and related Hawking)-type effects. After the first pioneering investigations, such research studies continued, including studies of the horizon entropy and other “black-hole thermodynamical” behaviors, which incidentally are also part of the frontier of the analog gravity research itself. It has been stressed that the trait d’union between the two phenomenologies is that in both hadron physics and black hole physics, “thermal” behaviors are more easily understood, not as due to real thermalization processes (sometimes just impossible, given the small number of particles involved), but rather to a stochastic/quantum entanglement nature of such temperatures. Finally, other aspects, such as the self-critical organizations of hadronic matter and of black holes, have been recently investigated. The results of those investigations are also summarized and commented upon here. As a general remark, this research line shows that we can probe quantum gravity theoretical constructions with analog systems that are not confined to only the condensed matter arena. Full article

We show under what conditions an accelerated detector (e.g., an atom/ion/molecule) thermalizes while interacting with the vacuum state of a quantum field in a setup where the detector’s acceleration alternates sign across multiple optical cavities. We show (non-perturbatively) in what regimes the probe ‘forgets’ that it is traversing cavities and thermalizes to a temperature proportional to its acceleration, the same as it would in free space. Then we analyze in detail how this thermalization relates to the renowned Unruh effect. Finally, we use these results to propose an experimental testbed for the direct detection of the Unruh effect at relatively low probe speeds and accelerations, potentially orders of magnitude below previous proposals. Full article

We discuss the process of particle creation in the case of a scalar quantum field confined to a small cavity, initially at rest, which is suddenly dropped in a static gravitational field. We show that, due to the transition from a Schwarzschild to a Minkowski background, as perceived by a comoving observer, field particles are excited out of the quantum vacuum. The density of the created quanta depends on the proper gravitational acceleration as well as on a parameter $\alpha \simeq 1/\Delta t$, with $\Delta t$ representing the typical time duration of the transition. For the specific acceleration profile considered, the energy spectrum of the created quanta roughly resembles a two-dimensional Planckian distribution, whose equivalent temperature mimics the Hawking-Unruh temperature, with the detector acceleration (or the black hole surface gravity) replaced by the parameter $c\alpha$. We briefly comment on possible issues related to local Lorentz symmetry. Full article

The kinetic-equation approach to particle production in strong, time-dependent external fields is revisited and three limiting cases are discussed for different field patterns: the Sauter pulse, a harmonic pulse with a Gaussian envelope, and a Poisson-distributed stochastic field. It is shown that for transient subcritical electric fields $E\left(t\right)$ a finite residual particle number density $n(\infty )$ would be absent if the field-dependence of the dynamical phase in the Schwinger source term would be neglected. In this case the distribution function of created particles follows the law $f\left(t\right)\sim E^2\left(t\right)$ . Two lessons for particle production in heavy-ion collisions are derived from this exercise. First: the shorter the (Sauter-type) pulse, the higher the residual density of produced particles. Second: although the Schwinger process in a string-type field produces a non-thermal particle spectrum, a Poissonian distribution of the (fluctuating) strings produces a thermal spectrum with an apparent temperature that coincides with the Hawking–Unruh temperature for the mean value of the string tension. Full article

Within the first few microseconds from after the Big Bang, the hot dense matter was in the form of the Quark Gluon Plasm (QGP) consisting of free quarks and gluons. By colliding heavy nuclei at RHIC and LHC at a velocity close to the speed of light, we were able to create the primordial matter and observe the matter after expansion and cooling. In this report we present the thermodynamics and transport coefficients obtained in the framework of clustering of color sources in both hadron-hadron and nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and LHC energies. Multiparticle production at high energies can be described in terms of color strings stretched between the projectile and target. At high string density single strings overlap and form color sources. This addition belongs to the non-perturbative domain of Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QGP) and manifests its most fundamental features. The Schwinger ${\mathrm{QED}}_2$ mechanism produces color neutral $q\overline{q}$ pairs when color source strings break. Subsequent hardonization produces the observed hadrons. With growing energy and atomic number of the colliding nuclei the density of strings grows and more color sources form clusters in the transverse plane. At a certain critical density a macroscopic cluster appears, which marks the percolation phase transition. This is the Color String Percolation Model (CSPM). The critical density is identified as the deconfinement transition and happens at the hadronization temperature. The stochastic thermalization in $pp$ and A-A is a consequence of the quantum tunneling through the event horizon introduced by the confining color fields, the Hawking-Unruh effect. The percolation approach within CSPM is successfully used to describe the crossover phase transition in the soft collision region. The same phenomenology when applied to both hadron-hadron and nucleus-nucleus collisions emphasizes the importance of color string density, creating a macroscopic cluster which identifies the connectivity required for a finite droplet of the QGP. Full article

We study the resonant dipole–dipole interaction energy between two non-inertial identical atoms, one excited and the other in the ground state, prepared in a correlated Bell-type state, and interacting with the scalar field or the electromagnetic field nearby a perfectly reflecting plate. We suppose the two atoms move with the same uniform acceleration, parallel to the plane boundary, and that their separation is constant during the motion. By separating the contributions of radiation reaction field and vacuum fluctuations to the resonance energy shift of the two-atom system, we show that Unruh thermal fluctuations do not affect the resonance interaction, which is exclusively related to the radiation reaction field. However, non-thermal effects of acceleration in the radiation-reaction contribution, beyond the Unruh acceleration–temperature equivalence, affect the resonance interaction energy. By considering specific geometric configurations of the two-atom system relative to the plate, we show that the presence of the mirror significantly modifies the resonance interaction energy between the two accelerated atoms. In particular, we find that new and different features appear with respect to the case of atoms in the free-space, related to the presence of the boundary and to the peculiar structure of the quantum electromagnetic field vacuum in the locally inertial frame. Our results suggest the possibility to exploit the resonance interaction between accelerated atoms as a probe for detecting the elusive effects of atomic acceleration on radiative processes. Full article

Using the new global embedding approach we investigate Unruh/Hawking temperature of the 5-dimensional minimal gauged supergravity black hole with double rotating parameters in a general (1 + 1) space-time. Our results verify that views of Banerjee and Majhi, and extend this approach to a higher dimension situation. Full article