Infrared divergences in a class of Robertson-Walker universes

Journal Article · Fri Jul 15 04:00:00 EDT 1977 · Phys. Rev., D; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.16.245· OSTI ID:7297853

Ford, L H; Parker, L

We investigate infrared divergences of expectation values of products of field operators in a class of curved space-times. The massless minimally coupled scalar field and the linearized gravitational field, quantized on a subset of spatially flat Robertson-Walker background metrics, have such divergences for an apparently natural choice of state vectors. For those states which give a large infrared contribution to the energy-momentum tensor, we show that these metrics cannot be self-consistent solutions of Einstein's equations. Finally, we show that such divergences cannot evolve dynamically in these models from initial conditions which are free of them. These divergences provide one possible criterion for limiting the acceptable choices of state vectors in curved space-time.

• Research Organization: Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201
• OSTI ID: 7297853
• Journal Information: Phys. Rev., D; (United States), Journal Name: Phys. Rev., D; (United States) Vol. 16:2; ISSN PRVDA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640106* -- Astrophysics & Cosmology-- Cosmology
657003 -- Theoretical & Mathematical Physics-- Relativity & Gravitation
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
EINSTEIN FIELD EQUATIONS
ENERGY-MOMENTUM TENSOR
EQUATIONS
FIELD EQUATIONS
GRAVITATIONAL FIELDS
INFRARED DIVERGENCES
KLEIN-GORDON EQUATION
MATHEMATICAL SPACE
METRICS
MINKOWSKI SPACE
SCALAR FIELDS
SPACE
SPACE-TIME
TENSORS
UNIVERSE
VACUUM STATES
WAVE EQUATIONS