The State Space of Perturbative Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetimes

The space of continuous states of perturbative interacting quantum field theories in globally hyperbolic curved spacetimes is determined. Following Brunetti and Fredenhagen, we first define an abstract algebra of observables which contains the Wick-polynomials of the free field as well as their time-ordered products, and hence, by the well-known rules of perturbative quantum field theory, also the observables (up to finite order) of interest for the interacting quantum field theory. We then determine the space of continuous states on this algebra. Our result is that this space consists precisely of those states whose truncated n-point functions of the free field are smooth for all n not equal to two, and whose two-point function has the singularity of a Hadamard fundamental form. A crucial role in our analysis is played by the positivity property of states. On the technical side, our proof involves functional analytic methods, in particular the methods of microlocal analysis.Comment: 24 pages, Latex file, no figure

Generalized Hadamard Product and the Derivatives of Spectral Functions

In this work we propose a generalization of the Hadamard product between two matrices to a tensor-valued, multi-linear product between k matrices for any $k \ge 1$. A multi-linear dual operator to the generalized Hadamard product is presented. It is a natural generalization of the Diag x operator, that maps a vector $x \in \R^n$ into the diagonal matrix with x on its main diagonal. Defining an action of the $n \times n$ orthogonal matrices on the space of k-dimensional tensors, we investigate its interactions with the generalized Hadamard product and its dual. The research is motivated, as illustrated throughout the paper, by the apparent suitability of this language to describe the higher-order derivatives of spectral functions and the tools needed to compute them. For more on the later we refer the reader to [14] and [15], where we use the language and properties developed here to study the higher-order derivatives of spectral functions.Comment: 24 page

Two-point functions in (loop) quantum cosmology

The path-integral formulation of quantum cosmology with a massless scalar field as a sum-over-histories of volume transitions is discussed, with particular but non-exclusive reference to loop quantum cosmology. Exploiting the analogy with the relativistic particle, we give a complete overview of the possible two-point functions, pointing out the choices involved in their definitions, deriving their vertex expansions and the composition laws they satisfy. We clarify the origin and relations of different quantities previously defined in the literature, in particular the tie between definitions using a group averaging procedure and those in a deparametrized framework. Finally, we draw some conclusions about the physics of a single quantum universe (where there exist superselection rules on positive- and negative-frequency sectors and different choices of inner product are physically equivalent) and multiverse field theories where the role of these sectors and the inner product are reinterpreted.Comment: 29 pages; v2: typos corrected, references adde

On the Hadamard product of Hopf monoids

Combinatorial structures which compose and decompose give rise to Hopf monoids in Joyal's category of species. The Hadamard product of two Hopf monoids is another Hopf monoid. We prove two main results regarding freeness of Hadamard products. The first one states that if one factor is connected and the other is free as a monoid, their Hadamard product is free (and connected). The second provides an explicit basis for the Hadamard product when both factors are free. The first main result is obtained by showing the existence of a one-parameter deformation of the comonoid structure and appealing to a rigidity result of Loday and Ronco which applies when the parameter is set to zero. To obtain the second result, we introduce an operation on species which is intertwined by the free monoid functor with the Hadamard product. As an application of the first result, we deduce that the dimension sequence of a connected Hopf monoid satisfies the following condition: except for the first, all coefficients of the reciprocal of its generating function are nonpositive

Permutation Equivalence Classes of Kronecker Products of Unitary Fourier Matrices

Kronecker products of unitary Fourier matrices play important role in solving multilevel circulant systems by a multidimensional Fast Fourier Transform. They are also special cases of complex Hadamard (Zeilinger) matrices arising in many problems of mathematics and theoretical physics. The main result of the paper is splitting the set of all kronecker products of unitary Fourier matrices into permutation equivalence classes. The choice of permutation equivalence to relate the products is motivated by the quantum information theory problem of constructing maximally entangled bases of finite dimensional quantum systems. Permutation inequivalent products can be used to construct inequivalent, in a certain sense, maximally entangled bases.Comment: 26 page

The microlocal spectrum condition and Wick polynomials of free fields on curved spacetimes

Quantum fields propagating on a curved spacetime are investigated in terms of microlocal analysis. We discuss a condition on the wave front set for the corresponding n-point distributions, called ``microlocal spectrum condition'' ($\mu$SC). On Minkowski space, this condition is satisfied as a consequence of the usual spectrum condition. Based on Radzikowski's determination of the wave front set of the two-point function of a free scalar field, satisfying the Hadamard condition in the Kay and Wald sense, we construct in the second part of this paper all Wick polynomials including the energy-momentum tensor for this field as operator valued distributions on the manifold and prove that they satisfy our microlocal spectrum condition.Comment: 21 pages, AMS-LaTeX, 2 figures appended as Postscript file

Pinching, Pontrjagin classes, and negatively curved vector bundles

We prove several finiteness results for the class $M_{a,b,G,n}$ of $n$-manifolds that have fundamental groups isomorphic to $G$ and that can be given complete Riemannian metrics of sectional curvatures within $[a,b]$ where $a\le b<0$. In particular, if $M$ is a closed negatively curved manifold of dimension at least three, then only finitely many manifolds in the class $M_{a,b,\pi_1(M), n}$ are total spaces of vector bundles over $M$. Furthermore, given a word-hyperbolic group $G$ and an integer $n$ there exists a positive $\epsilon=\epsilon(n,G)$ such that the tangent bundle of any manifold in the class $M_{-1-\epsilon, -1, G, n}$ has zero rational Pontrjagin classes.Comment: 32 page