5 research outputs found
Is the brick-wall model unstable for a rotating background?
The stability of the brick wall model is analyzed in a rotating background.
It is shown that in the Kerr background without horizon but with an inner
boundary a scalar field has complex-frequency modes and that, however, the
imaginary part of the complex frequency can be small enough compared with the
Hawking temperature if the inner boundary is sufficiently close to the horizon,
say at a proper altitude of Planck scale. Hence, the time scale of the
instability due to the complex frequencies is much longer than the relaxation
time scale of the thermal state with the Hawking temperature. Since ambient
fields should settle in the thermal state in the latter time scale, the
instability is not so catastrophic. Thus, the brick wall model is well defined
even in a rotating background if the inner boundary is sufficiently close to
the horizon.Comment: Latex, 17 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Quantum Radiation from a 5-Dimensional Rotating Black Hole
We study a massless scalar field propagating in the background of a
five-dimensional rotating black hole. We showed that in the Myers-Perry metric
describing such a black hole the massless field equation allows the separation
of variables. The obtained angular equation is a generalization of the equation
for spheroidal functions. The radial equation is similar to the radial
Teukolsky equation for the 4-dimensional Kerr metric. We use these results to
quantize the massless scalar field in the space-time of the 5-dimensional
rotating black hole and to derive expressions for energy and angular momentum
fluxes from such a black hole.Comment: references added, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Particle creation, classicality and related issues in quantum field theory: II. Examples from field theory
We adopt the general formalism, which was developed in Paper I
(arXiv:0708.1233) to analyze the evolution of a quantized time-dependent
oscillator, to address several questions in the context of quantum field theory
in time dependent external backgrounds. In particular, we study the question of
emergence of classicality in terms of the phase space evolution and its
relation to particle production, and clarify some conceptual issues. We
consider a quantized scalar field evolving in a constant electric field and in
FRW spacetimes which illustrate the two extreme cases of late time adiabatic
and highly non-adiabatic evolution. Using the time-dependent generalizations of
various quantities like particle number density, effective Lagrangian etc.
introduced in Paper I, we contrast the evolution in these two limits bringing
out key differences between the Schwinger effect and evolution in the de Sitter
background. Further, our examples suggest that the notion of classicality is
multifaceted and any one single criterion may not have universal applicability.
For example, the peaking of the phase space Wigner distribution on the
classical trajectory \emph{alone} does not imply transition to classical
behavior. An analysis of the behavior of the \emph{classicality parameter},
which was introduced in Paper I, leads to the conclusion that strong particle
production is necessary for the quantum state to become highly correlated in
phase space at late times.Comment: RevTeX 4; 27 pages; 18 figures; second of a series of two papers, the
first being arXiv:0708.1233 [gr-qc]; high resolution figures available from
the authors on reques
Particle creation, classicality and related issues in quantum field theory: I. Formalism and toy models
The quantum theory of a harmonic oscillator with a time dependent frequency
arises in several important physical problems, especially in the study of
quantum field theory in an external background. While the mathematics of this
system is straightforward, several conceptual issues arise in such a study. We
present a general formalism to address some of the conceptual issues like the
emergence of classicality, definition of particle content, back reaction etc.
In particular, we parametrize the wave function in terms of a complex number
(which we call excitation parameter) and express all physically relevant
quantities in terms it. Many of the notions -- like those of particle number
density, effective Lagrangian etc., which are usually defined using asymptotic
in-out states -- are generalized as time-dependent concepts and we show that
these generalized definitions lead to useful and reasonable results. Having
developed the general formalism we apply it to several examples. Exact analytic
expressions are found for a particular toy model and approximate analytic
solutions are obtained in the extreme cases of adiabatic and highly
non-adiabatic evolution. We then work out the exact results numerically for a
variety of models and compare them with the analytic results and
approximations. The formalism is useful in addressing the question of emergence
of classicality of the quantum state, its relation to particle production and
to clarify several conceptual issues related to this. In Paper II
(arXiv:0708.1237), which is a sequel to this, the formalism will be applied to
analyze the corresponding issues in the context of quantum field theory in
background cosmological models and electric fields.Comment: RevTeX 4; 32 pages; 28 figures; first of a series of two papers, the
second being arXiv:0708.1237 [gr-qc]; high resolution figures available from
the authors on reques