Comment on "Hadamard states for a scalar field in anti-de Sitter spacetime with arbitrary boundary conditions"

In a recent paper (Phys. Rev. D 94, 125016 (2016)), the authors argued that the singularities of the two-point functions on the Poincar\'e domain of the $n$-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime ($\text{PAdS}_n$) have the Hadamard form, regardless of which (Robin) boundary condition is chosen at the conformal boundary. However, the argument used to prove this statement was based on an incorrect expression for the two-point function $G^{+}(x,x')$, which was obtained by demanding $\text{AdS}$ invariance for the vacuum state. In this comment I show that their argument works only for Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions and that the full $\text{AdS}$ symmetry cannot be respected by nontrivial Robin conditions (i.e., those which are neither Dirichlet nor Neumann). By studying the conformal scalar field on $\text{PAdS}_2$, I find the correct expression for $G^{+}(x,x')$ and show that, notwithstanding this problem, it still have the Hadamard form.Comment: 3 page

Quantum Singularities in Spacetimes with Spherical and Cylindrical Topological Defects

Exact solutions of Einstein equations with null Riemman-Christoffel curvature tensor everywhere, except on a hypersurface, are studied using quantum particles obeying the Klein-Gordon equation. We consider the particular cases when the curvature is represented by a Dirac delta function with support either on a sphere or on a cylinder (spherical and cylindrical shells). In particular, we analyze the necessity of extra boundary conditions on the shells.Comment: 7 page,1 fig., Revtex, J. Math. Phys, in pres

Quantum Singularities in Static Spacetimes

We review the mathematical framework necessary to understand the physical content of quantum singularities in static spacetimes. We present many examples of classical singular spacetimes and study their singularities by using wave packets satisfying Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations. We show that in many cases the classical singularities are excluded when tested by quantum particles but unfortunately there are other cases where the singularities remain from the quantum mechanical point of view. When it is possible we also find, for spacetimes where quantum mechanics does not exclude the singularities, the boundary conditions necessary to turn the spatial portion of the wave operator into self-adjoint and emphasize their importance to the interpretation of quantum singularities.Comment: 14 pages, section Quantum Singularities has been improve

Vacuum Fluctuations and the Small Scale Structure of Spacetime

We show that vacuum fluctuations of the stress-energy tensor in two-dimensional dilaton gravity lead to a sharp focusing of light cones near the Planck scale, effectively breaking space up into a large number of causally disconnected regions. This phenomenon, called "asymptotic silence" when it occurs in cosmology, might help explain several puzzling features of quantum gravity, including evidence of spontaneous dimensional reduction at short distances. While our analysis focuses on a simplified two-dimensional model, we argue that the qualitative features should still be present in four dimensions.Comment: 4 pages, revte