A free-theory vacuum state of an interacting field theory, e.g. quantum gravity, is unstable at tree level in general due to spontaneous emission of Fock-space particles in any spacetime with no global timelike Killing vectors, such as de Sitter spacetime, in the interaction picture. As an example, the rate of spontaneous emission of Fock-space particles is calculated in phi^4 theory in de Sitter spacetime. It is possible that this apparent spontaneous emission does not correspond to any physical processes because the states are not evolved by the true Hamiltonian in the interaction picture. Nevertheless, the constant spontaneous emission of Fock-space particles in the interaction picture clearly demonstrates that the in- and out-vacuum states are orthogonal to each other as emphasized by Polyakov and that the in-out perturbation theory, which presupposes some overlap between these two vacuum states, is inadequate. Other possible implications of apparent vacuum instability of this kind in the interaction picture are also discussed.
The general plane wave solutions of the Proca field in conformal charts of the de Sitter expanding universe are derived for arbitrary polarizations showing how the frequencies can be separated in rest frames, defining thus the rest frame vacuum of this field.
In this work we study the Sorkin-Johnston (SJ) vacuum in de Sitter spacetime for free scalar field theory. For the massless theory we find that the SJ vacuum can neither be obtained from the $O(4)$ Fock vacuum of Allen and Folacci nor from the non-Fock de Sitter invariant vacuum of Kirsten and Garriga. Using a causal set discretisation of a slab of 2d and 4d de Sitter spacetime, we find the causal set SJ vacuum for a range of masses $m \geq 0$ of the free scalar field. While our simulations are limited to a finite volume slab of global de Sitter spacetime, they show good convergence as the vol…
Equipped with new powerful and efficient methods for computing quantum expectation values in static-spherically symmetric spacetimes in arbitrary dimensions, we perform an in-depth investigation of how the quantum vacuum polarization varies with the parameters in the theory. In particular, we compute and compare the vacuum polarization for a quantum scalar field in the Schwarzschild anti-de Sitter black hole spacetime for a range of values of the field mass and field coupling constant as well as the black hole mass and number of spacetime dimensions. In addition, a new approximation for the va…
We study the free massive scalar field in de Sitter spacetime with static charts. In particular, we find positive-frequency modes for the Bunch-Davies vacuum state natural to the static charts as superpositions of the well-known positive-frequency modes in the conformally-flat chart. We discuss in detail how these modes are defined globally in the two static charts and the region in their future. The global structure of these solutions leads to the well-known description of the Bunch-Davies vacuum state as an entangled state. Our results are expected to be useful not only for studying the ther…
In general, the Gibbons-Hawking temperature based on the Euclidean functional approach shows that de Sitter space in the Bunch-Davies vacuum is globally thermal. In the exactly soluble semiclassical Jackiw-Teitelboim model, we investigate thermal property of de Sitter space by taking into account the quantum back reaction of the geometry. The proper temperature of de Sitter space in the Bunch-Davies vacuum is found to vanish. In case of a certain quantum state breaking the de Sitter symmetry, de Sitter space can be made thermally exited; however, in this case the dilaton singularity cannot be …
We study the effects of a fixed de Sitter geometry background in scenarios of false vacuum decay. It is currently understood that bubble nucleation processes associated with first order phase transitions are particularly important in cosmology. The geometry of spacetime complicates the interpretation of the decay rate of a metastable vacuum. However, the effects of curvature can still be studied in the particular case where backreaction is neglected. We compute the imaginary part of the action in de Sitter space, including the one-loop and the gradient corrections. We use two independent metho…
We study the vacuum polarisation effects of the Dirac fermionic field induced by a pointlike global monopole located in the cosmological de Sitter spacetime. First we derive the four orthonormal Dirac modes in this background in a closed form. Quantising the field using these modes, we then compute the fermionic condensate, $\langle 0| \overlineΨ Ψ| 0\rangle$, as well as the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor for a massive Dirac field, regularised in a particular way. We have used the Abel-Plana summation formula in order to extract the global monopole contribution to these…
We study false vacuum decay in a black hole (BH) spacetime with an angular momentum. Considering the false vacuum region described by a Kerr-de Sitter geometry, under the thin wall approximation, we can obtain the stationary configuration of the vacuum bubble seen from the outside false vacuum region without specifying the geometry inside the domain wall. Then, assuming the true vacuum region is described by a Kerr geometry, we can fix the mass and the spin parameter for the Kerr geometry by imposing the 1st junction conditions and conservation of the angular momentum. Although the assumption …
We prove that five-dimensional extreme anti-de Sitter black ring solutions to the vacuum Einstein equations that admit biaxial symmetry do not exist. This is established by demonstrating the nonexistence of five-dimensional, biaxisymmetric, vacuum near-horizon geometries of extreme horizons with a nonzero cosmological constant and ring topology.
We present a calculation of thick-wall Coleman-de-Luccia (CdL) bounces in the Standard Model effective potential in a de Sitter background. The calculation is performed including the effect of the bounce back-reaction on the metric, which we compare with the case of a fixed de-Sitter background, and with similar full-backreaction calculation in a model polynomial potential. The results show that the Standard Model potential exhibits non-trivial behavior: rather than a single CdL solution, there are multiple (non-oscillating) bounce solutions which may contribute to the decay rate. All the extr…
In de Sitter ambient space formalism, the linear gravity can be written in terms of a minimally coupled scalar field and a polarization tensor. In this formalism, the massless minimally coupled scalar field can be quantized on Bunch-Davies vacuum state, that preserves the de Sitter invariance, the analyticity and removes the infrared divergence. The de Sitter quantum linear gravity is then constructed on Bunch-Davies vacuum state, which is also covariant, analytic and free of any infrared divergences. We will conclude that the unique Bunch-Davies vacuum state can be used adequately to construc…
Decaying vacuum cosmological models evolving smoothly between two extreme (very early and late time) de Sitter phases are capable to solve or at least to alleviate some cosmological puzzles, among them: (i) the singularity, (ii) horizon, (iii) graceful-exit from inflation, and (iv) the baryogenesis problem. Our basic aim here is to discuss how the coincidence problem based on a large class of running vacuum cosmologies evolving from de Sitter to de Sitter can also be mollified. It is also argued that even the cosmological constant problem become less severe provided that the characteristic sca…
We discuss several aspects of quantum field theory of a scalar field in a Friedmann universe, clarifying and highlighting several conceptual and technical issues. (A) We show that one can map the dynamics of (1) a massless scalar field in a universe with power law expansion to (2) a massive scalar field in the de Sitter spacetime, which allows us to understand several features of either system and clarifies several issues related to the massless limit. (B) We obtain a useful integral representation for the Euclidean Green's function for the de Sitter spacetime, by relating it to the solution o…
Application of Krein space quantization to the linear gravity in de Sitter space-time have constructed on Gupta-Bleuler vacuum state, resulting in removal of infrared divergence and preserving de Sitter covariant. By pursuing this path, the non uniqueness of vacuum expectation value of the product of field operators in curved space-time disappears as well. Then the vacuum expectation value of the product of field operators can be defined properly and uniquely.
We compute the entanglement entropy of a free massive Dirac field between two causally disconnected open charts in de Sitter space. We first derive the Bunch-Davies vacuum mode functions of the Dirac field. We find there exists no supercurvature mode for the Dirac field. We then give the Bogoliubov transformation between the Bunch-Davies vacuum and the open chart vacua that makes the reduced density matrix diagonal. We find that the Dirac field becomes more entangled than a scalar field as $m^2/H^2$ becomes small, and the difference is maximal in the massless limit.
In this paper we study the charged electro-weak interactions in the de Sitter geometry. We develop the reduction formalism for the Proca field with the help of the solutions for the interacting fields. Perturbation theory is used for obtaining the definition of the transition amplitudes in the first order. We apply our formalism to the study of spontaneous vacuum emission of fermions, anti-fermions and $W^{\pm}$ bosons in the expanding de Sitter universe. Our results are generalizations of the Weinberg-Salam electro-weak theory to curved space-time, in the case of $W^{\pm}$ boson interaction w…
Thermodynamics of polymerized vacuum regular black holes in anti-de Sitter spacetime
Institute for Theoretical Physics and Cosmology, Zhejiang University of Technology（浙江工业大学理论物理与宇宙学研究所）；Institute for Theoretical Sciences and Departments of Physics and Astronomy, Westlake University（西湖大学理论科学研究所及物理与天文学系）；Institute of Natural Sciences, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study（西湖高等研究院自然科学研究所）
We compute the vacuum polarization for a massless, conformally coupled scalar field on the covering space of global, four-dimensional, anti-de Sitter space-time. Since anti-de Sitter space is not globally hyperbolic, boundary conditions must be applied to the scalar field. We consider general Robin (mixed) boundary conditions for which the classical evolution of the field is well-defined and stable. The vacuum expectation value of the square of the field is not constant unless either Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions are applied. We also compute the thermal expectation value of the squa…
It is shown that, for a de Sitter Universe, the Hartle-Hawking (HH) wave function can be obtained in a simple way starting from the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) line element of cosmological equations. An oscillator having imaginary time is indeed derived starting from the Hamiltonian obtaining the HH condition. This proposes again some crucial matter on the meaning of complex time in cosmology. In order to overcome such difficulties, we propose an interpretation of the HH framework based on de Sitter Projective Holography.
The decay rate of the Bunch-Davies state of a massive scalar field in the expanding flat spatial sections of de Sitter space is determined by an analysis of the particle pair creation process in real time. The Feynman definition of particle and antiparticle Fourier mode solutions of the scalar wave equation, and their adiabatic phase analytically continued to the complexified time domain, show conclusively that the Bunch-Davies state is not the vacuum state at late times. The closely analogous creation of charged particle pairs in a uniform electric field is reviewed and Schwinger's result for…
We study the vacuum decay and the bubble nucleation in the anti-de Sitter black holes. In the bubble nucleation spacetime, the interior and the exterior of the bubble wall are described by two anti-de Sitter black hole spacetimes with different cosmological constants. We calculate the Euclidean action of the bubble nucleation spacetime and give the numerical results of the tunneling rates for different cases. It is shown that the black hole can act as a source of inhomogeneities and catalyze the vacuum decay and the bubble nucleation in the anti-de Sitter spacetime. For the RNAdS black holes, …
We use analytic estimates and numerical simulations to explore the stochastic approach to vacuum decay. According to this approach, the time derivative of a scalar field, which is in a local vacuum state, develops a large fluctuation and the field \flies over" a potential barrier to another vacuum. The probability distribution for the initial fluctuation is found quantum mechanically, while the subsequent nonlinear evolution is determined by classical dynamics. We find in a variety of cases that the rate of such flyover transitions has the same parametric form as that of tunneling transitions …
