The averaged null energy condition and difference inequalities in quantum field theory

Recently, Larry Ford and Tom Roman have discovered that in a flat cylindrical space, although the stress-energy tensor itself fails to satisfy the averaged null energy condition (ANEC) along the (non-achronal) null geodesics, when the ``Casimir-vacuum" contribution is subtracted from the stress-energy the resulting tensor does satisfy the ANEC inequality. Ford and Roman name this class of constraints on the quantum stress-energy tensor ``difference inequalities." Here I give a proof of the difference inequality for a minimally coupled massless scalar field in an arbitrary two-dimensional spacetime, using the same techniques as those we relied on to prove ANEC in an earlier paper with Robert Wald. I begin with an overview of averaged energy conditions in quantum field theory.Comment: 20 page

Averaged Energy Conditions and Evaporating Black Holes

In this paper the averaged weak (AWEC) and averaged null (ANEC) energy conditions, together with uncertainty principle-type restrictions on negative energy (``quantum inequalities''), are examined in the context of evaporating black hole backgrounds in both two and four dimensions. In particular, integrals over only half-geodesics are studied. We determine the regions of the spacetime in which the averaged energy conditions are violated. In all cases where these conditions fail, there appear to be quantum inequalities which bound the magnitude and extent of the negative energy, and hence the degree of the violation. The possible relevance of these results for the validity of singularity theorems in evaporating black hole spacetimes is discussed.Comment: Sections 2.1 and 2.2 have been revised and some erroneous statements corrected. The main conclusions and the figures are unchanged. 27 pp, plain Latex, 3 figures available upon reques

Quantum decoherence of a charge qubit in a spin-fermion model

We consider quantum decoherence in solid-state systems by studying the transverse dynamics of a single qubit interacting with a fermionic bath and driven by external pulses. Our interest is in investigating the extent to which the lost coherence can be restored by the application of external pulses to the qubit. We show that the qubit evolution under various pulse sequences can be mapped onto Keldysh path integrals. This approach allows a simple diagrammatic treatment of different bath excitation processes contributing to qubit decoherence. We apply this theory to the evolution of the qubit coupled to the Andreev fluctuator bath in the context of widely studied superconducting qubits. We show that charge fluctuations within the Andreev-fluctuator model lead to a 1/f noise spectrum with a characteristic temperature depedence. We discuss the strategy for suppression of decoherence by the application of higher-order (beyond spin echo) pulse sequences.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; extended version (accepted to Phys. Rev. B

The averaged null energy condition for general quantum field theories in two dimensions

It is shown that the averaged null energy condition is fulfilled for a dense, translationally invariant set of vector states in any local quantum field theory in two-dimensional Minkowski spacetime whenever the theory has a mass gap and possesses an energy-momentum tensor. The latter is assumed to be a Wightman field which is local relative to the observables, generates locally the translations, is divergence-free, and energetically bounded. Thus the averaged null energy condition can be deduced from completely generic, standard assumptions for general quantum field theory in two-dimensional flat spacetime.Comment: LateX2e, 16 pages, 1 eps figur

Group classification of (1+1)-Dimensional Schr\"odinger Equations with Potentials and Power Nonlinearities

We perform the complete group classification in the class of nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations of the form $i\psi_t+\psi_{xx}+|\psi|^\gamma\psi+V(t,x)\psi=0$ where $V$ is an arbitrary complex-valued potential depending on $t$ and $x,$ $\gamma$ is a real non-zero constant. We construct all the possible inequivalent potentials for which these equations have non-trivial Lie symmetries using a combination of algebraic and compatibility methods. The proposed approach can be applied to solving group classification problems for a number of important classes of differential equations arising in mathematical physics.Comment: 10 page

Quantum Field Theory Constrains Traversable Wormhole Geometries

Recently a bound on negative energy densities in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime was derived for a minimally coupled, quantized, massless, scalar field in an arbitrary quantum state. The bound has the form of an uncertainty principle-type constraint on the magnitude and duration of the negative energy density seen by a timelike geodesic observer. When spacetime is curved and/or has boundaries, we argue that the bound should hold in regions small compared to the minimum local characteristic radius of curvature or the distance to any boundaries, since spacetime can be considered approximately Minkowski on these scales. We apply the bound to the stress-energy of static traversable wormhole spacetimes. Our analysis implies that either the wormhole must be only a little larger than Planck size or that there is a large discrepancy in the length scales which characterize the wormhole. In the latter case, the negative energy must typically be concentrated in a thin band many orders of magnitude smaller than the throat size. These results would seem to make the existence of macroscopic traversable wormholes very improbable.Comment: 26 pages, plain LaTe

Survival probability and order statistics of diffusion on disordered media

We investigate the first passage time t_{j,N} to a given chemical or Euclidean distance of the first j of a set of N>>1 independent random walkers all initially placed on a site of a disordered medium. To solve this order-statistics problem we assume that, for short times, the survival probability (the probability that a single random walker is not absorbed by a hyperspherical surface during some time interval) decays for disordered media in the same way as for Euclidean and some class of deterministic fractal lattices. This conjecture is checked by simulation on the incipient percolation aggregate embedded in two dimensions. Arbitrary moments of t_{j,N} are expressed in terms of an asymptotic series in powers of 1/ln N which is formally identical to those found for Euclidean and (some class of) deterministic fractal lattices. The agreement of the asymptotic expressions with simulation results for the two-dimensional percolation aggregate is good when the boundary is defined in terms of the chemical distance. The agreement worsens slightly when the Euclidean distance is used.Comment: 8 pages including 9 figure

Probability Distribution of the Shortest Path on the Percolation Cluster, its Backbone and Skeleton

We consider the mean distribution functions Phi(r|l), Phi(B)(r|l), and Phi(S)(r|l), giving the probability that two sites on the incipient percolation cluster, on its backbone and on its skeleton, respectively, connected by a shortest path of length l are separated by an Euclidean distance r. Following a scaling argument due to de Gennes for self-avoiding walks, we derive analytical expressions for the exponents g1=df+dmin-d and g1B=g1S-3dmin-d, which determine the scaling behavior of the distribution functions in the limit x=r/l^(nu) much less than 1, i.e., Phi(r|l) proportional to l^(-(nu)d)x^(g1), Phi(B)(r|l) proportional to l^(-(nu)d)x^(g1B), and Phi(S)(r|l) proportional to l^(-(nu)d)x^(g1S), with nu=1/dmin, where df and dmin are the fractal dimensions of the percolation cluster and the shortest path, respectively. The theoretical predictions for g1, g1B, and g1S are in very good agreement with our numerical results.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Quantum Inequalities on the Energy Density in Static Robertson-Walker Spacetimes

Quantum inequality restrictions on the stress-energy tensor for negative energy are developed for three and four-dimensional static spacetimes. We derive a general inequality in terms of a sum of mode functions which constrains the magnitude and duration of negative energy seen by an observer at rest in a static spacetime. This inequality is evaluated explicitly for a minimally coupled scalar field in three and four-dimensional static Robertson-Walker universes. In the limit of vanishing curvature, the flat spacetime inequalities are recovered. More generally, these inequalities contain the effects of spacetime curvature. In the limit of short sampling times, they take the flat space form plus subdominant curvature-dependent corrections.Comment: 18 pages, plain LATEX, with 3 figures, uses eps

Restrictions on negative energy density in a curved spacetime

Recently a restriction ("quantum inequality-type relation") on the (renormalized) energy density measured by a static observer in a "globally static" (ultrastatic) spacetime has been formulated by Pfenning and Ford for the minimally coupled scalar field, in the extension of quantum inequality-type relation on flat spacetime of Ford and Roman. They found negative lower bounds for the line integrals of energy density multiplied by a sampling (weighting) function, and explicitly evaluate them for some specific spacetimes. In this paper, we study the lower bound on spacetimes whose spacelike hypersurfaces are compact and without boundary. In the short "sampling time" limit, the bound has asymptotic expansion. Although the expansion can not be represented by locally invariant quantities in general due to the nonlocal nature of the integral, we explicitly evaluate the dominant terms in the limit in terms of the invariant quantities. We also make an estimate for the bound in the long sampling time limit.Comment: LaTex, 23 Page