Vacuum energy as spectral geometry (Q2473498)

The author aims to represent vacuum energy of quantum mechanical systems as a spectral geometric property of the Hamiltonian operator. More precisely, he aims to prove the connections between closed orbits, spectral densities, and vacuum energy densities. After a short introduction the paper splits into three more sections. 2. Vacuum energy (and energy density) in general. 3. Vacuum energy in a vector bundle from periodic orbits. 4. Boundary vacuum energy from closed periodic orbits. The main purpose of this article is to demonstrate the above mentioned spectral geometric representation in the simplest one-dimensional models in detail. However, the author claims that a more complete discussion considering vacuum energy in quantum graphs is planned to be published. Reviewer's remark: This is a problematic paper that tries to connect vacuum energy with spectral geometry. However, it is necessary to underline that, in a generic quantum system, the starting point should be a quantum PDE, i.e., a dynamic equation formulated in a suitable category of noncommutative manifolds (quantum manifolds). Thus the ``vacuum energy'' of a solution, of such a quantum PDE, should be interpreted as the lowest energy of that solution. If the solution has a mass-gap, then such '``vacuum energy'' coincides with the mass-energy of the solution. (So for solutions without mass-gap it should be more appropriate to talk about ``vacuum energy''.) The energy spectrum of a solution is the one identified by the quantum Hamiltonian associated to the solution. With this respect, the problem arising in this paper, to use spectral geometry as a tool that should justify a quantum dynamics, is ignored. In fact, there the quantum dynamics is simulated by some classical PDE's whose role is, in general, unjustified in the framework of quantum systems.