Waiting for Unruh
How long does a uniformly accelerated observer need to interact with a quantum field in order to record thermality in the Unruh temperature? We address this question for a pointlike Unruh–DeWitt detector, coupled linearly to a real Klein–Gordon field of mass and treated within first order perturbat...
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| Format: | Article |
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IOP Publishing
2016
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44055/ |
| _version_ | 1848796826606501888 |
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| author | Fewster, Christopher J. Juárez-Aubry, Benito A. Louko, Jorma |
| author_facet | Fewster, Christopher J. Juárez-Aubry, Benito A. Louko, Jorma |
| author_sort | Fewster, Christopher J. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | How long does a uniformly accelerated observer need to interact with a quantum field in order to record thermality in the Unruh temperature? We address this question for a pointlike Unruh–DeWitt detector, coupled linearly to a real Klein–Gordon field of mass and treated within first order perturbation theory, in the limit of large detector energy gap . We first show that when the interaction duration is fixed, thermality in the sense of detailed balance cannot hold as , and this property generalises from the Unruh effect to any Kubo–Martin–Schwinger state satisfying certain technical conditions. We then specialise to a massless field in four spacetime dimensions and show that detailed balance does hold when grows as a power-law in as , provided the switch-on and switch-off intervals are stretched proportionally to and the switching function has sufficiently strong Fourier decay. By contrast, if grows by stretching a plateau in which the interaction remains at constant strength but keeping the duration of the switch-on and switch-off intervals fixed, detailed balance at requires to grow faster than any polynomial in , under mild technical conditions. The results also hold for a static detector in a Minkowski heat bath. The results limit the utility of the large regime as a probe of thermality in time-dependent versions of the Hawking and Unruh effects, such as an observer falling into a radiating black hole. They may also have implications on the design of prospective experimental tests of the Unruh effect. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:54:09Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-44055 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:54:09Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-440552020-05-04T18:00:53Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44055/ Waiting for Unruh Fewster, Christopher J. Juárez-Aubry, Benito A. Louko, Jorma How long does a uniformly accelerated observer need to interact with a quantum field in order to record thermality in the Unruh temperature? We address this question for a pointlike Unruh–DeWitt detector, coupled linearly to a real Klein–Gordon field of mass and treated within first order perturbation theory, in the limit of large detector energy gap . We first show that when the interaction duration is fixed, thermality in the sense of detailed balance cannot hold as , and this property generalises from the Unruh effect to any Kubo–Martin–Schwinger state satisfying certain technical conditions. We then specialise to a massless field in four spacetime dimensions and show that detailed balance does hold when grows as a power-law in as , provided the switch-on and switch-off intervals are stretched proportionally to and the switching function has sufficiently strong Fourier decay. By contrast, if grows by stretching a plateau in which the interaction remains at constant strength but keeping the duration of the switch-on and switch-off intervals fixed, detailed balance at requires to grow faster than any polynomial in , under mild technical conditions. The results also hold for a static detector in a Minkowski heat bath. The results limit the utility of the large regime as a probe of thermality in time-dependent versions of the Hawking and Unruh effects, such as an observer falling into a radiating black hole. They may also have implications on the design of prospective experimental tests of the Unruh effect. IOP Publishing 2016-07-18 Article PeerReviewed Fewster, Christopher J., Juárez-Aubry, Benito A. and Louko, Jorma (2016) Waiting for Unruh. Classical and Quantum Gravity, 33 (16). 165003/1-165003/25. ISSN 1361-6382 Unruh effect Unruh–DeWitt detector Approach to detailed balance https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381/33/16/165003 doi:10.1088/0264-9381/33/16/165003 doi:10.1088/0264-9381/33/16/165003 |
| spellingShingle | Unruh effect Unruh–DeWitt detector Approach to detailed balance Fewster, Christopher J. Juárez-Aubry, Benito A. Louko, Jorma Waiting for Unruh |
| title | Waiting for Unruh |
| title_full | Waiting for Unruh |
| title_fullStr | Waiting for Unruh |
| title_full_unstemmed | Waiting for Unruh |
| title_short | Waiting for Unruh |
| title_sort | waiting for unruh |
| topic | Unruh effect Unruh–DeWitt detector Approach to detailed balance |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44055/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44055/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44055/ |