Global Existence of Solutions of the Semiclassical Einstein Equation for Cosmological Spacetimes

We study the solutions of the semiclassical Einstein equation in flat cosmological spacetimes driven by a massive conformally coupled scalar field. In particular, we show that it is possible to give initial conditions at finite time to get a state for the quantum field which gives finite expectation values for the stress-energy tensor. Furthermore, it is possible to control this expectation value by means of a global estimate on regular cosmological spacetimes. The obtained estimates permit to write a theorem about the existence and uniqueness of the local solutions encompassing both the spacetime metric and the matter field simultaneously. Finally, we show that one can always extend local solutions up to a point where the scale factor becomes singular or the Hubble function reaches a critical value $H_c = 180\pi/G$, which both correspond to a divergence of the scalar curvature, namely a spacetime singularity.Comment: 20 pages; corrected reference

Electromagnetic Potential in Pre-Metric Electrodynamics: Causal Structure, Propagators and Quantization

An axiomatic approach to electrodynamics reveals that Maxwell electrodynamics is just one instance of a variety of theories for which the name electrodynamics is justified. They all have in common that their fundamental input are Maxwell's equations $\textrm{d} F = 0$ (or $F = \textrm{d} A$) and $\textrm{d} H = J$ and a constitutive law H = # F which relates the field strength two-form $F$ and the excitation two-form $H$. A local and linear constitutive law defines what is called local and linear pre-metric electrodynamics whose best known application are the effective description of electrodynamics inside media including, e.g., birefringence. We analyze the classical theory of the electromagnetic potential $A$ before we use methods familiar from mathematical quantum field theory in curved spacetimes to quantize it in a locally covariant way. Our analysis of the classical theory contains the derivation of retarded and advanced propagators, the analysis of the causal structure on the basis of the constitutive law (instead of a metric) and a discussion of the classical phase space. This classical analysis sets the stage for the construction of the quantum field algebra and quantum states. Here one sees, among other things, that a microlocal spectrum condition can be formulated in this more general setting.Comment: 34 pages, references added, update to published version, title updated to published versio

An Evolution Equation Approach to Linear Quantum Field Theory

In the first part of our paper we analyze bisolutions and inverses of (non-autonomous) evolution equations. We are mostly interested in pseudo-unitary evolutions on Krein spaces, which naturally arise in linear Quantum Field Theory. We prove that with boundary conditions given by a maximal positive and maximal negative space we can associate an inverse, which can be viewed as a generalization of the usual Feynman propagator. In the context of globally hyperbolic manifolds, the Feynman propagator turns out to be a distinguished inverse of the Klein-Gordon operator. Within the formalism of Quantum Field Theory on curved spacetimes, the Feynman propagator yields the expectation values of time-ordered products of fields between the in and out vacuum --the basic ingredient for Feynman diagrams.Comment: 61 page

Hadamard States for the Vector Potential on Asymptotically Flat Spacetimes

We develop a quantization scheme for the vector potential on globally hyperbolic spacetimes which realizes it as a locally covariant conformal quantum field theory. This result allows us to employ on a large class of backgrounds, which are asymptotically flat at null infinity, a bulk-to-boundary correspondence procedure in order to identify for the underlying field algebra a distinguished ground state which is of Hadamard form.Comment: 25 pages, comments added, improved notation, minor typos corrected and updated bibliograph

Scale-Invariant Curvature Fluctuations from an Extended Semiclassical Gravity

We present an extension of the semiclassical Einstein equations which couples n-point correlation functions of a stochastic Einstein tensor to the n-point functions of the quantum stress-energy tensor. We apply this extension to calculate the quantum fluctuations during an inflationary period, where we take as a model a massive conformally coupled scalar field on a perturbed de Sitter space and describe how a renormalization independent, almost-scale-invariant power spectrum of the scalar metric perturbation is produced. Furthermore, we discuss how this model yields a natural basis for the calculation of non-Gaussianities of the considered metric fluctuations.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures; final versio