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PIRSA:21040033

Getting hot without accelerating: vacuum thermal effects from conformal quantum mechanics

APA

Arzano, M. (2021). Getting hot without accelerating: vacuum thermal effects from conformal quantum mechanics. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/21040033

Michele Arzano University of Naples Federico II

Talk numberPIRSA:21040033
Collection

Abstract

In this talk I will discuss how the generators of radial conformal symmetries in Minkowski space-time are related to the generators of time evolution in conformal quantum mechanics. Within this correspondence I will show that in conformal quantum mechanics the state corresponding to the inertial vacuum for a conformally invariant field in Minkowski space-time has the structure of a thermofield double. The latter is built from a bipartite "vacuum state" corresponding to the ground state of the generators of hyperbolic time evolution, which cover only a portion of the time domain. When such generators are the ones of conformal Killing vectors mapping a causal diamond in itself and of dilations, the temperature of the thermofield double reproduces, respectively, the diamond temperature and the Milne temperature perceived by observers whose constant proper time hyper-surfaces define a hyperbolic slicing of the future cone. I will point out how this result indicates that, for conformal invariant fields, the fundamental ingredient for vacuum thermal effects in flat-space time is the non-eternal nature of the lifetime of observers rather than their acceleration.