Not all adiabatic vacua are physical states

Adiabatic vacua are known to be Hadamard states. We show, however that the energy-momentum tensor of a linear Klein-Gordon field on Robertson-Walker spaces developes a generic singularity on the initial hypersurface if the adiabatic vacuum is of order less than four. Therefore, adiabatic vacua are physically reasonable only if their order is at least four. A certain non-local large momentum expansion of the mode functions has recently been suggested to yield the subtraction terms needed to remove the ultraviolet divergences in the energy-momentum tensor. We find that this scheme fails to reproduce the trace anomaly and therefore is not equivalent to adiabatic regularisation.Comment: 13 pages, LaTex2

Out-of-equilibrium evolution of scalar fields in FRW cosmology: renormalization and numerical simulations

We present a renormalized computational framework for the evolution of a self-interacting scalar field (inflaton) and its quantum fluctuations in an FRW background geometry. We include a coupling of the field to the Ricci scalar with a general coupling parameter $\xi$. We take into account the classical and quantum back reactions, i.e., we consider the the dynamical evolution of the cosmic scale factor. We perform, in the one-loop and in the large-N approximation, the renormalization of the equation of motion for the inflaton field, and of its energy momentum tensor. Our formalism is based on a perturbative expansion for the mode functions, and uses dimensional regularization. The renormalization procedure is manifestly covariant and the counter terms are independent of the initial state. Some shortcomings in the renormalization of the energy-momentum tensor in an earlier publication are corrected. We avoid the occurence of initial singularities by constructing a suitable class of initial states. The formalism is implemented numerically and we present some results for the evolution in the post-inflationary preheating era.Comment: 44 pages, uses latexsym, 6 pages with 11 figures in a .ps fil

Attractor states and infrared scaling in de Sitter space

The renormalized expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor for a scalar field with any mass m and curvature coupling xi is studied for an arbitrary homogeneous and isotropic physical initial state in de Sitter spacetime. We prove quite generally that has a fixed point attractor behavior at late times, which depends only on m and xi, for any fourth order adiabatic state that is infrared finite. Specifically, when m^2 + xi R > 0, approaches the Bunch-Davies de Sitter invariant value at late times, independently of the initial state. When m = xi = 0, it approaches instead the de Sitter invariant Allen-Folacci value. When m = 0 and xi \ge 0 we show that this state independent asymptotic value of the energy-momentum tensor is proportional to the conserved geometrical tensor (3)H_{ab}, which is related to the behavior of the quantum effective action of the scalar field under global Weyl rescaling. This relationship serves to generalize the definition of the trace anomaly in the infrared for massless, non-conformal fields. In the case m^2 + xi R = 0, but m and xi separately different from zero, grows linearly with cosmic time at late times. For most values of m and xi in the tachyonic cases, m^2 + xi R grows exponentially at late cosmic times for all physically admissable initial states.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figures, 46 kB tar.gz fil

Energy-Momentum Tensor of Particles Created in an Expanding Universe

We present a general formulation of the time-dependent initial value problem for a quantum scalar field of arbitrary mass and curvature coupling in a FRW cosmological model. We introduce an adiabatic number basis which has the virtue that the divergent parts of the quantum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor are isolated in the vacuum piece of , and may be removed using adiabatic subtraction. The resulting renormalized is conserved, independent of the cutoff, and has a physically transparent, quasiclassical form in terms of the average number of created adiabatic `particles'. By analyzing the evolution of the adiabatic particle number in de Sitter spacetime we exhibit the time structure of the particle creation process, which can be understood in terms of the time at which different momentum scales enter the horizon. A numerical scheme to compute as a function of time with arbitrary adiabatic initial states (not necessarily de Sitter invariant) is described. For minimally coupled, massless fields, at late times the renormalized goes asymptotically to the de Sitter invariant state previously found by Allen and Folacci, and not to the zero mass limit of the Bunch-Davies vacuum. If the mass m and the curvature coupling xi differ from zero, but satisfy m^2+xi R=0, the energy density and pressure of the scalar field grow linearly in cosmic time demonstrating that, at least in this case, backreaction effects become significant and cannot be neglected in de Sitter spacetime.Comment: 28 pages, Revtex, 11 embedded .ps figure

Generation and characterization of carbonyl ylides from pyrazolinone spirooxiranes

Laser flash photolyses of 1-oxa-5,6-diazaspiro[2.4]hept-6-ene-4-ones I (Ar [triple bond] Ph, p-NO2Ph, p-CH3OPh; R1 [tripe bond] CH3, Ph; R2, R3 [triple bond] CH3; R2 [triple bond] Ph, p-NO2Ph, p-ClPh, 2-naphthyl; R3 [triple bond] H) and of the symmetrical oxirane II give rise to transients with absorption spectra in the visible region and lifetimes of the order of 0.3 - 10 [mu]s in benzene at room temperature. Sensitization experiments in some cases indicate that the intermediate may arise from a triplet as well as a singlet excited state. Transients from I are quenched by alcohols and 2,3-dimethyl-2-butene whereas that from II is not. Steady state photolyses of I in methanol give products consistent with the assignment of the structure of the transient as a carbonyl ylide incorporating the pyrazolinone ring.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31041/1/0000718.pd