Effects of stress tensor fluctuations upon focusing

Journal Article · Wed Sep 15 00:00:00 EDT 2004 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.70.064032· OSTI ID:20705254

Borgman, J; Ford, L H ^[1]

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1. Institute of Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155 (United States)

We treat the gravitational effects of quantum stress tensor fluctuations. An operational approach is adopted in which these fluctuations produce fluctuations in the focusing of a bundle of geodesics. This can be calculated explicitly using the Raychaudhuri equation as a Langevin equation. The physical manifestation of these fluctuations are angular blurring and luminosity fluctuations of the images of distant sources. We give explicit results for the case of a scalar field on a flat background in a thermal state.

• OSTI ID: 20705254
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 70, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.70.064032; (c) 2004 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
COSMOLOGY
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY
FLUCTUATIONS
GEODESICS
IMAGES
LANGEVIN EQUATION
QUANTUM GRAVITY
SCALAR FIELDS
STRESSES
TENSORS