Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow
The Unruh effect can be formulated as the statement that the Minkowski vacuum in a Rindler wedge has a boost as its modular flow. In recent years, other examples of states with geometrically local modular flow have played important roles in understanding energy and entropy in quantum field theory an...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156880 |
| _version_ | 1824457860335009792 |
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| author | Sorce, Jonathan |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics Sorce, Jonathan |
| author_sort | Sorce, Jonathan |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The Unruh effect can be formulated as the statement that the Minkowski vacuum in a Rindler wedge has a boost as its modular flow. In recent years, other examples of states with geometrically local modular flow have played important roles in understanding energy and entropy in quantum field theory and quantum gravity. Here I initiate a general study of the settings in which geometric modular flow can arise, showing (i) that any geometric modular flow must be a conformal symmetry of the background spacetime, and (ii) that in a well behaved class of “weakly analytic” states, geometric modular flow must be future-directed. I further argue that if a geometric transformation is conformal but not isometric, then it can only be realized as modular flow in a conformal field theory. Finally, I discuss a few settings in which converse results can be shown — i.e., settings in which a state can be constructed whose modular flow reproduces a given vector field. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T07:59:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/156880 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-02-19T04:16:42Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1568802024-12-23T06:38:45Z Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow Sorce, Jonathan Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics The Unruh effect can be formulated as the statement that the Minkowski vacuum in a Rindler wedge has a boost as its modular flow. In recent years, other examples of states with geometrically local modular flow have played important roles in understanding energy and entropy in quantum field theory and quantum gravity. Here I initiate a general study of the settings in which geometric modular flow can arise, showing (i) that any geometric modular flow must be a conformal symmetry of the background spacetime, and (ii) that in a well behaved class of “weakly analytic” states, geometric modular flow must be future-directed. I further argue that if a geometric transformation is conformal but not isometric, then it can only be realized as modular flow in a conformal field theory. Finally, I discuss a few settings in which converse results can be shown — i.e., settings in which a state can be constructed whose modular flow reproduces a given vector field. 2024-09-17T14:08:20Z 2024-09-17T14:08:20Z 2024-09-09 2024-09-15T03:15:50Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156880 Sorce, J. Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow. J. High Energ. Phys. 2024, 40 (2024). PUBLISHER_CC en https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP09(2024)040 Journal of High Energy Physics Creative Commons Attribution https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The Author(s) application/pdf Springer Berlin Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
| spellingShingle | Sorce, Jonathan Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow |
| title | Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow |
| title_full | Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow |
| title_fullStr | Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow |
| title_full_unstemmed | Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow |
| title_short | Analyticity and the Unruh effect: a study of local modular flow |
| title_sort | analyticity and the unruh effect a study of local modular flow |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/156880 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sorcejonathan analyticityandtheunruheffectastudyoflocalmodularflow |