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Register a new userVacuum energy density and pressure of a massive scalar field
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With a view toward application of the Pauli-Villars regularization method to the Casimir energy of boundaries, we calculate the expectation values of the components of the stress tensor of a confined massive field in 1+1 space-time dimensions. Previous papers by Hays and Fulling are bridged and generalized. The Green function for the time-independent Schrodinger equation is constructed from the Green function for the whole line by the method of images; equivalently, the one-dimensional system is solved exactly in terms of closed classical paths and periodic orbits. Terms in the energy density and in the eigenvalue density attributable to the two boundaries individually and those attributable to the confinement of the field to a finite interval are distinguished so that their physical origins are clear. Then the pressure is found similarly from the cylinder kernel, the Green function associated most directly with an exponential frequency cutoff of the Fourier mode expansion. Finally, we discuss how the theory could be rendered finite by the Pauli-Villars method.
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Vacuum-energy calculations with ideal reflecting boundaries are plagued by boundary divergences, which presumably correspond to real (but finite) physical effects occurring near the boundary. Our working hypothesis is that the stress tensor for idealized boundary conditions with some finite cutoff should be a reasonable ad hoc model for the true situation. The theory will have a sensible renormalized limit when the cutoff is taken away; this requires making sense of the Einstein equation with a distributional source. Calculations with the standard ultraviolet cutoff reveal an inconsistency between energy and pressure similar to the one that arises in noncovariant regularizations of cosmological vacuum energy. The problem disappears, however, if the cutoff is a spatial point separation in a neutral direction parallel to the boundary. Here we demonstrate these claims in detail, first for a single flat reflecting wall intersected by a test boundary, then more rigorously for a region of finite cross section surrounded by four reflecting walls. We also show how the moment-expansion theorem can be applied to the distributional limits of the source and the solution of the Einstein equation, resulting in a mathematically consistent differential equation where cutoff-dependent coefficients have been identified as renormalizations of properties of the boundary. A number of issues surrounding the interpretation of these results are aired.
We show how the equations for the scalar field (including the massive, massless, minimally and conformally coupled cases) on de Sitter and Anti-de Sitter spaces can be obtained from both the SO$(2,4)$-invariant equation $square phi = 0$ in $mathbb{R}^6$ and two geometrical constraints defining the (A)dS space. Apart from the equation in $mathbb{R}^6$, the results only follow from the geometry.
We introduce a generalization of the usual vacuum energy, called `deformed vacuum energy, which yields anisotropic pressure whilst preserving zero inertial mass density. It couples to the shear scalar in a unique way, such that they together emulate the canonical scalar field with an arbitrary potential. This opens up a new avenue by reconsidering cosmologies based on canonical scalar fields, along with a bonus that the kinetic term of the scalar field is replaced by an observable, the shear scalar. We further elaborate the aspects of this approach in the context of dark energy.
Perfectly conducting boundaries, and their Dirichlet counterparts for quantum scalar fields, predict nonintegrable energy densities. A more realistic model with a finite ultraviolet cutoff yields two inconsistent values for the force on a curved or edged boundary (the pressure anomaly). A still more realistic, but still easily calculable, model replaces the hard wall by a power-law potential; because it involves no a posteriori modification of the formulas calculated from the theory, this model should be anomaly-free. Here we first set up the formalism and notation for the quantization of a scalar field in the background of a planar soft wall, and we approximate the reduced Green function in perturbative and WKB limits (the latter being appropriate when either the mode frequency or the depth into the wall is sufficiently large). Then we display numerical calculations of energy density and pressure for the region outside the wall, which show that the pressure anomaly does not occur there. Calculations inside the wall are postponed to later papers, which must tackle regularization and renormalization of divergences induced by the potential in the bulk region.
Inspired by the corresponding problem in QCD, we determine the pressure of massless O(N) scalar field theory up to order g^6 in the weak-coupling expansion, where g^2 denotes the quartic coupling constant. This necessitates the computation of all 4-loop vacuum graphs at a finite temperature: by making use of methods developed by Arnold and Zhai at 3-loop level, we demonstrate that this task is manageable at least if one restricts to computing the logarithmic terms analytically, while handling the ``constant 4-loop contributions numerically. We also inspect the numerical convergence of the weak-coupling expansion after the inclusion of the new terms. Finally, we point out that while the present computation introduces strategies that should be helpful for the full 4-loop computation on the QCD-side, it also highlights the need to develop novel computational techniques, in order to be able to complete this formidable task in a systematic fashion.
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