A topological defect in the form of the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen vortex is considered as a gauge-flux-carrying tube that is impenetrable for quantum matter. The relativistic spinor matter field is quantized in the vortex background in $2+1$-dimensional conical space-time which is a section orthogonal to the vortex axis; the most general set of boundary conditions ensuring the impenetrability of the vortex core is employed. We find the induced vacuum current circulating around the vortex and the induced vacuum magnetic field strength pointing along the vortex axis. The requirement of finiteness and physical plausibility for the total induced vacuum magnetic flux allows us to restrict the variety of admissible boundary conditions. The dependence of the results on the transverse size of the vortex, as well as on the vortex flux and the parameter of conicity, is elucidated.
Charged spinor matter field is quantized in a spatial region bounded by two parallel neutral plates. The most general set of boundary conditions ensuring the confinement of matter within the plates is considered. We study a response of the vacuum of the confined matter to the background uniform magnetic field which is directed orthogonally to the plates. It is proven that, in the case of a sufficiently strong magnetic field, the vacuum pressure onto the plates is positive and independent of the boundary condition, as well as of the distance between the plates.
Exact analytical solutions are presented for the time evolution of the density of pairs produced in the QED vacuum by a time-independent, uniform electric field. The mathematical tool used here to describe the pair production is the Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner function introduced before [Phys. Rev. D 44, 1825 (1991)]. The initial value problem for this function is solved by decomposing the solution into a product of spinors. The equations for spinors are much simpler and are solved analytically. These calculations are nonperturbative since pair production is due to quantum-mechanical tunneling and…
Two-dimensional space with a topological defect is a transverse section of three-dimensional space with the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen vortex, i.e. a gauge-flux-carrying tube which is impenetrable for quantum matter. Charged spinor matter field is quantized in this section with the most general mathematically admissible boundary condition at the edge of the defect. We show that a current and a magnetic field are induced in the vacuum. The dependence of the results on boundary conditions is studied, and we find that the requirement of finiteness of the total induced vacuum magnetic flux removes a…
We study the relations of the positive frequency mode functions of Dirac field in 4-dimensional Minkowski spacetime covered with Rindler and Kasner coordinates, and describe the explicit form of the Minkowski vacuum state with the quantum states in Kasner and Rindler regions, and analytically continue the solutions. As a result, we obtain the correspondence of the positive frequency mode functions in Kasner region and Rindler region in a unified manner which derives vacuum entanglement.
We compute the one-loop potential (the Casimir energy) for scalar, spinor and vectors fields on the spaces $\,R^{m+1}\, \times\,Y$ with $\,Y=\,S^N\,,CP^2$. As a physical model we consider spinor electrodynamics on four-dimensional product manifolds. We examine the cancelation of a divergent part of the Casimir energy on even-dimensional spaces by means of including the parameter $\,M$ in original action. For some models we compare our results with those found in the literature.
A generalization of the MIT bag boundary condition for spinor matter is proposed basing on the requirement that the Dirac hamiltonian operator be self-adjoint. An influence of a background magnetic field on the vacuum of charged spinor matter confined between two parallel material plates is studied. Employing the most general set of boundary conditions at the plates in the case of the uniform magnetic field directed orthogonally to the plates, we find the pressure from the vacuum onto the plates. In physically plausible situations, the Casimir effect is shown to be repulsive, independently of …
We investigated action of operator analogs of Dirac gamma matrices (we called them gamma operators) on a vacuum. We derived formulas for vacuum state vector and operators of the Lorentz transformations of spinors in the superalgebraic representation of spinors. Five operator analogs of five Dirac gamma matrices exist in the superalgebraic approach as well as two additional operator analogs of gamma matrices. Gamma operators are constructed from Grassmann densities and derivatives with respect to them. We have shown that there are operators which are built from creation and annihilation operato…
We found the contribution to the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor of a massive Dirac field due to the conical geometry of the cosmic string space-time. The heat kernel and heat kernel expansion for the squared Dirac operator in this background are also considered and the first three coefficients were found in an explicity form.
Free spinor fields, with spin 1/2, are explored in details in the momentum picture of motion in Lagrangian quantum field theory. The field equations are equivalently written in terms of creation and annihilation operators and on their base the anticommutation relations are derived. Some problems concerning the vacuum and state vectors of free spinor field are discussed. Several Lagrangians, describing free spinor fields, are considered and the basic consequences of them are investigated.
We explore the possibility that the expansion of the universe can be driven by a condensate of spinors which are free of interactions on a 5D relativistic vacuum defined on an extended de Sitter spacetime which is Riemann-flat. The extra coordinate is considered as noncompact. After making a static foliation on the extra coordinate, we obtain an effective 4D (inflationary) de Sitter expansion which describes an inflationary universe. We found that the condensate of spinors here studied could be an interesting candidate to explain the presence of dark energy in the early universe. The dark ener…
What is the physical origin of dark energy? Could this energy be originated by other fields than the inflaton? In this work we explore the possibility that the expansion of the universe can be driven by a condensate of spinors. These spinors are free of interactions on 5D relativistic vacuum in an extended de Sitter spacetime. The extra coordinate is considered as noncompact. After making a static foliation on the extra coordinate, we obtain an effective 4D (inflationary) de Sitter expansion which describes an inflationary universe. In view of our results we conclude that the condensate of spi…
We provide a detailed description of our previously proposed scheme for topological interface engineering with constructed defects and textures perforating across coherent interfaces between different broken symmetries [M. O. Borgh and J. Ruostekoski, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 015302 (2012)]. We consider a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate, in which polar and ferromagnetic phases are prepared in spatially separated regions. We show that a stable coherent interface is established between the two phases, allowing defects of different topology to connect continuously across the boundary. We provide ana…
In the framework of strong-field QED with $x$-steps, we study vacuum mean values of the current density and energy--momentum tensor of the quantized spinor field placed in the so-called $L$-constant electric background. The latter background can be, for example, understood as the electric field confined between capacitor plates, which are separated by a sufficiently large distance $L$. First, we reveal peculiarities of nonperturbative calculating of mean values in strong-field QED with $x$-steps in general and, in the $L$-constant electric field, in particular. We propose a new renormalization…
We propose to use spatial control of the Zeeman energy shifts in an ultracold atomic gas to engineer an interface between topologically distinct regions. This provides an experimentally accessible means for studying the interface physics of topological defects and textures. Using the spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate as an example, we find spinor wave functions that represent defects and textures continuously connecting across the interface between polar and ferromagnetic regions induced by spatially varying Zeeman shifts. By numerical energy minimization we characterize the defect core structur…
A singular configuration of an external static vector field in the form of a magnetic string polarizes the vacuum of a second-quantized theory on the plane orthogonal to the string axis. The most general boundary conditions at the punctured singular point that are compatible with the self-adjointness of two-dimensional Dirac Hamiltonian are considered. The dependences of the induced vacuum quantum numbers on the parameter of the self-adjoint extension, on the string flux, and on the choice of irreducible representation of the matrices in (2+1)-dimensional spacetime are disscussed.
The propagation of gravitational waves on the background of a nonperturbative vacuum of a spinor field is considered. It is shown that there are several distinctive features in comparison with the propagation of plane gravitational waves through empty space: there exists the fixed phase difference between the $h_{yy,zz}$ and $h_{yz}$ components of the wave; the phase and group velocities of gravitational waves are not equal to the velocity of light; the group velocity is always less than the velocity of light; under some conditions the gravitational waves are either damped or absent; for given…
We show how the length scale hierarchy, resulting from different interaction strengths in an optically-trapped spin-1 sodium-23 Bose-Einstein condensate, can lead to intriguing core deformations in singular topological defects. In particular, a point defect can be unstable with respect to the formation of a stable half-quantum vortex ring (an Alice ring), providing a realistic scheme to use dissipation as a sophisticated state engineering tool. We compute the threshold for stability of the point monopole, which is beyond the current experimental regime.
Building on general formulas obtained from the approximate renormalized effective action, the stress-energy tensor of the quantized massive spinor and vector fields in the spacetime of the regular black hole is constructed. Such a black hole is the solution to the coupled system of nonlinear electrodynamics and general relativity. A detailed analytical and numerical analysis of the stress-energy tensor in the exterior region is presented. It is shown that for small values of the charge as well as large distances from the black hole the leading behavior of the stress-energy tensor is similar to…
The article is a natural continuation of our paper {\em Quantum scalar field in FRW Universe with constant electromagnetic background}, Int. J. Mod. Phys. {\bf A12}, 4837 (1997). We generalize the latter consideration to the case of massive spinor field, which is placed in FRW Universe of special type with a constant electromagnetic field. To this end special sets of exact solutions of Dirac equation in the background under consideration are constructed and classified. Using these solutions representations for out-in, in-in, and out-out spinor Green functions are explicitly constructed as prop…
Effects due to fermion-vacuum polarization by an external static magnetic field are considered in a two-dimensional noncompact curved space with a nontrivial topology. An expression for the vacuun angular momentum is obtained. Like the vacuum fermion number, it proves to be dependent on the global characteristics of the field and space.
We investigate the vacuum expectation values of the energy-momentum tensor and the fermionic condensate associated with a massive spinor field obeying the MIT bag boundary condition on a spherical shell in the global monopole spacetime. In order to do that it was used the generalized Abel-Plana summation formula. As we shall see, this procedure allows to extract from the vacuum expectation values the contribution coming from to the unbounded spacetime and explicitly to present the boundary induced parts. As to the boundary induced contribution, two distinct situations are examined: the vacuum …
I present a model of discrete gravity, which is formulated in terms of a topological gauge theory with defects. The theory has no local degrees of freedom and the gravitational field is trivial everywhere except at a number of colliding null surfaces, which represent a system of curvature defects propagating at the speed of light. The underlying action is local and it is studied in both its Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulation. The canonically conjugate variables on the null surfaces are a spinor and a spinor-valued two-surface density, which are coupled to a topological field theory for the…
In this paper, we compute the effective action of both a scalar field and a Dirac spinor field in the global de Sitter space of any dimension $d$ using the in-/out-state formalism. We show that there is particle production in even dimensions for both scalar field and spinor field. The in-out vacuum amplitude $Z_{in/out}$ is divergent at late times. By using dimensional regularization, we extract the finite part of $\log Z_{in/out}$ for $d$ even and the logarithmically divergent part of $\log Z_{in/out}$ for $d$ odd. We also find that the regularized in-out vacuum amplitude equals the ratio of …
We study the influence of a background uniform magnetic field and boundary conditions on the vacuum of a quantized charged spinor matter field confined between two parallel neutral plates; the magnetic field is directed orthogonally to the plates. The admissible set of boundary conditions at the plates is determined by the requirement that the Dirac Hamiltonian operator be self-adjoint. It is shown that, in the case of a sufficiently strong magnetic field and a sufficiently large separation of the plates, the generalized Casimir force is repulsive, being independent of the choice of a boundary…
In spinor formalism, since any massless free-field spinor with spin higher than $1/2$ can be constructed with spin-1/2 spinors (Dirac-Weyl spinors) and scalars, we introduce a map between Weyl fields and Dirac-Weyl fields. We determine the corresponding Dirac-Weyl spinors in a given empty spacetime. Regarding them as basic units, other higher spin massless free-field spinors are then identified. Along this way, we find some hidden fundamental features related to these fields. In particular, for non-twisting vacuum Petrov type N solutions, we show that all higher spin massless free-field spinor…
Topological defects can arise in symmetry breaking models where the scalar field potential $V(ϕ)$ has no minima and is a monotonically decreasing function of $|ϕ|$. The properties of such vacuumless defects are quite different from those of the ``usual'' strings and monopoles. In some models such defects can serve as seeds for structure formation, or produce an appreciable density of mini-black holes.
Discrete symmetries are spatially ubiquitous but are often hidden in internal states of systems where they can have especially profound consequences. In this work we create and verify exotic magnetic phases of atomic spinor Bose-Einstein condensates that, despite their continuous character and intrinsic spatial isotropy, exhibit complex discrete polytope symmetries in their topological defects. Using carefully tailored spinor rotations and microwave transitions, we engineer singular line defects whose quantization conditions, exchange statistics, and dynamics are fundamentally determined by th…
We construct a Lagrangian of Weyl spinors and gauge fields, which is invariant under the action of equivalent local transformations on the spinor algebra representations. A model of vacuum with a nontrivial gauge strength-tensor setting a scale and spontaneously breaking the gauge symmetry is suggested, so that the leading approximation at low energies is described by the Einstein--Hilbert Lagrangian of gravity. We consider a mechanism for the cancellation of cosmological constant due to a symmetry between the vacuum strength tensor and the tensor dual to it. The appearance of nonzero masses f…
We evaluate the vacuum polarization tensor (VPT) for a massless Dirac field in 1+1 and 3+1 dimensions, in the presence of a particular kind of defect, which in a special limit imposes bag boundary conditions. We also show that the chiral anomaly in the presence of such a defect is the same as when no defects are present, both in 1+1 and 3+1 dimensions. This implies that the induced vacuum current in 1+1 dimensions due to the lowest order VPT is exact.
We obtain the collection of symmetric and symplectic matrix integrals and the collection of Pfaffian tau-functions, recently described by Peng and Adler and van Moerbeke, as specific elements in the Spin-group orbit of the vacuum vector of a fermionic Fock space. This fermionic Fock space is the same space as one constructs to obtain the KP and 1-Toda lattice hierarchy.
In this paper we investigate the vacuum polarization effects associated with a massive quantum scalar field in de Sitter spacetime in the presence of gravitational topological defects. Specifically we calculate the vacuum expectation value of the field square, $<Φ^2>$. Because this investigation has been developed in a pure de Sitter space, here we are mainly interested on the effects induced by the presence of the defects.
In this paper we investigate the vacuum polarization effects associated with a massive fermionic field due to the non-trivial topology of the global monopole spacetime and boundary conditions imposed on this field. Specifically we investigate the vacuum expectation values of the energy-momentum tensor and fermionic condensate admitting that the field obeys the MIT bag boundary condition on two concentric spherical shells. In order to develop this analysis, we use the generalized Abel-Plana summation, which allows to extract from the vacuum expectation values the contribution coming from a sing…
In this paper we analyze one-loop quantum effects of a scalar field induced by a composite topological defect consisting a cosmic string on a p-dimensional brane and a (m+1)-dimensional global monopole in the transverse extra dimensions. The corresponding Green function is presented as a sum of two terms. The first one corresponds to the bulk where the cosmic string is absent and the second one is induced by the presence of the string. For the points away from the cores of the topological defects the latter is finite in the coincidence limit and is used for the evaluation of the vacuum expecta…
We analyse the trapping of eigenspinors of the charge conjugation operator with dual helicity (Elko), in thin and thick string-like models with codimension-2. Elko spinor fields describe mass dimension one fermions in four dimensions (and, correspondingly, mass dimension two fermions in six dimensions), that represent natural dark matter prime candidates. This dark spinor has many applications, from particle physics to cosmology. On the other hand, six-dimensional brane-world models have, among other prominent features, the spontaneous confinement of free spin 1 fields and a mechanism that exp…
We show that a dispiration (a disclination plus a screw dislocation) polarizes the vacuum of a scalar field giving rise to an energy momentum tensor which, as seen from a local inertial frame, presents non vanishing off-diagonal components. The results may have applications in cosmology (chiral cosmic strings) and condensed matter physics (materials with linear defects).
A non-local classical duality between the three-block truncated 11D supergravity and the 8D vacuum gravity with two commuting Killing symmetries is established. The supergravity four-form field is generated via an inverse dualisation of the corresponding Killing two-forms in six dimensions. 11D supersymmetry condition is shown to be equivalent to existence of covariantly constant spinors in eight dimensions. Thus any solution to the vacuum Einstein equations in eight dimensions depending on six coordinates and admitting Killing spinors have supersymmetric 11D-supergravity counterparts. Using t…
Moving from Beisert-Staudacher equations, the complete set of Asymptotic Bethe Ansatz equations and $S$-matrix for the excitations over the GKP vacuum is found. The resulting model on this new vacuum is an integrable spin chain of length $R=2\ln s$ ($s=$ spin) with particle rapidities as inhomogeneities, two (purely transmitting) defects and $SU(4)$ (residual R-)symmetry. The non-trivial dynamics of ${\cal N}=4$ SYM appears in elaborated dressing factors of the 2D two-particle scattering factors, all depending on the 'fundamental' one between two scalar excitations. From scattering factors we …
With the standard system for an SU(2) Higgs field in M_4 X S_1, the top and bottom component of the Higgs spinor have exactly the same coeficients for the quadratic and quadric terms. This makes the vacuum degenerate and thus there are no tunneling effects to zeroth order in radiative corrections of the vector gauge felds in the standard model with this extra dimensional geometry. However, if we include an external magnetic flux that permeates our manifold, then the top component of the Higgs spinor will have an additional term in its coefficient due to this theoretical flux with the usual cha…
The model of nonperturbative vacuum in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory coupled to a nonlinear spinor field is suggested. By analogy with Abelian magnetic monopole dominance in quantum chromodynamics, it is assumed that the dominant contribution to such vacuum is coming from quasiparticles described by dipolelike solutions existing in this theory. Using an assumption of the behavior of the number density of quasiparticles whose energy approaches infinity, we derive an approximate expression for the energy density of such nonperturbative vacuum, which turns out to be finite, unlike an infinite energy de…
We study the solutions to the Dirac equation for the massive spinor field in the universal covering space of two-dimensional anti-de Sitter space. For certain values of the mass parameter, we impose a suitable set of boundary conditions which make the spatial component of the Dirac operator self-adjoint. Then, we use the transformation properties of the spinor field under the isometry group of the theory, namely, the universal covering group of $\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$, in order to determine which self-adjoint boundary conditions are invariant under this group. We identify the corresponding…
We investigate the vacuum polarization effects associated with a charged massless spin-1/2 field in a higher-dimensional space-time, induced by a composite topological defect. The defect is constituted by a global monopole living on a three-brane and two-dimensional conical space transverse to the latter. In addition, we assume the presence of an extra magnetic flux along the core of the conical space. The heat kernel and the Feynman Green function are presented in the form of a sum of two terms. The first one corresponds to the contribution coming from the bulk with global monopole in the abs…
We propose an experimentally feasible scheme for topological interface engineering and show how it can be used for studies of dynamics of topologically nontrivial interfaces and perforation of defects and textures across such interfaces. The method makes use of the internal spin structure of the atoms together with locally applied control of interaction strengths to create many-particle states with highly complex topological properties. In particular, we consider a constructed coherent interface between topologically distinct phases of spinor Bose-Einstein condensates.
The influence of spatial geometry on the vacuum polarization in 2+1-dimensional spinor electrodynamics is investigated. The vacuum angular momentum induced by an external static magnetic field is found to depend on global geometric surface characteristics connected with curvature. The relevance of the results obtained for the fermion number fractionization is discussed.
We present a calculation of the ground state energy of massive spinor fields and massive scalar fields in the background of an inhomogeneous magnetic string with potential given by a delta function. The zeta functional regularization is used and the lowest heat kernel coefficients are calculated. The rest of the analytical calculation adopts the Jost function formalism. In the numerical part of the work the renormalized vacuum energy as a function of the radius $R$ of the string is calculated and plotted for various values of the strength of the potential. The sign of the energy is found to ch…
We consider compactifications of type II string theory on general SU(3) x SU(3) structure backgrounds allowing for a very large set of fluxes, possibly nongeometric ones. We study the effective 4d low energy theory which is a gauged N=2 supergravity, and discuss how its data are obtained from the formalism of the generalized geometry on T+T*. In particular we relate Hitchin's special Kaehler metrics on the spaces of even and odd pure spinors to the metric on the supergravity moduli space of internal metric and B-field fluctuations. We derive the N=1 vacuum conditions from this N=2 effective ac…
We make a detailed investigation on the quantum corrections to Chern-Simons spinor electrodynamics. Starting from Chern-Simons spinor quantum electrodynamics with the Maxwell term $-1/(4γ){\int}d^3x F_{μν}F^{μν}$ and by calculating the vacuum polarization tensor, electron self-energy and on-shell vertex, we explicitly show that the Ward identity is satisfied and hence verify that the physical quantities are independent of the procedure of taking $γ{\to}{\infty}$ at one-loop and tree levels. In particular, we find the three-dimensional analogue of the Schwinger anomalous magnetic moment term of…
It has been recently shown that topological defects can arise in symmetry breaking models where the scalar field potential $V(ϕ)$ has no minima and is a monotonically decreasing function of $|ϕ|$. Here we study the gravitational fields produced by such vacuumless defects in the cases of both global and gauge symmetry breaking. We find that a global monopole has a strongly repulsive gravitational field, and its spacetime has an event horizon similar to that in de Sitter space. A gauge monopole spacetime is essentially that of a magnetically charged black hole. The gravitational field of a globa…
We apply a new general method of anholonomic frames with associated nonlinear connection structure to construct new classes of exact solutions of Einstein-Dirac equations in five dimensional (5D)gravity. Such solutions are parametrized by off-diagonal metrics in coordinate (holonomic) bases, or, equivalently, by diagonal metrics given with respect to some anholonomic frames (pentads, or funfbiends, satisfing corresponding constraint relations). We consider two possibilities of generalization of the Taub NUT metric in order to obtain vacuum solutions of 5D Einsitein equations with effective ren…
The ground state energy of a quantum field in the background of classical field configurations is considered. The subject of the ground state energy in framework of the quantum field theory is explained. The short review of calculation methods (generalized zeta function and heat kernel expansion) and their mathematical foundations is given. We use the zeta-functional regularization and express the ground state energy as an integral involving the Jost function of a two dimensional scattering problem.We perform the renormalization by subtracting the contributions from first several heat kernel c…
A topological defect in the form of the Abrikosov-Nielsen-Olesen vortex in a space of arbitrary dimension is considered as a gauge-flux-carrying tube that is impenetrable for quantum matter. Charged scalar matter field is quantized in the vortex background with the perfectly rigid (Neumann) boundary condition imposed at the side surface of the vortex. We show that a current circulating around the vortex is induced in the vacuum, if the Compton wavelength of the matter field exceeds the transverse size of the vortex considerably. The vacuum current is periodic in the value of the gauge flux of …
Effects of the configuration of an external static magnetic field in the form of a singular vortex on the vacuum of a quantized massless spinor field are determined. The most general boundary conditions at the punctured singular point which make the twodimensional Dirac Hamiltonian to be self-adjoint are employed.
The mode solutions of the Dirac equation on $N$-dimensional de Sitter space-time ($dS_{N}$) with $(N-1)$-sphere spatial sections are obtained by analytically continuing the spinor eigenfunctions of the Dirac operator on the $N$-sphere ($S^{N}$). The analogs of flat space-time positive frequency modes are identified and a vacuum is defined. The transformation properties of the mode solutions under the de Sitter group double cover (Spin($N$,1)) are studied. We reproduce the expression for the massless spinor Wightman two-point function in closed form using the mode-sum method. By using this clos…
We obtain the equation that describe the conditions of quantization for neutral massless bosons on an arbitrary curved space-time, obtained using a particular theoretical formalism developed in a previous work\cite{MM}. In particular, we study the emission of neutral massless $(1, 2)\hbar$-spin bosons during pre-inflation using the recently introduced unified spinor field theory. We conclude that during pre-inflation (which is governed by an vacuum equation of state), is emitted gravitational radiation, which could be detected in the future, as primordial gravitational radiation.
