Absence of ground state for the Nelson model on static space-times (Q652437)

In 1964 Edward Nelson proposed and studied a model describing the interaction of non-relativistic particles with a quantized scalar field. The initial interest of the Nelson model was that it is the simplest non-trivial QFT model for which the ultraviolet limit, i.e. removal of the cutoff function, can be easily performed. With the ultraviolet cutoff removed, the Nelson model becomes a local QFT model. Even with an ultraviolet cutoff, the rigorous study of the Nelson model is of much interest, and quite a lot of efforts were devoted to the analysis of several of its mathematical aspects. A number of articles published in the period 2000-2010 consider the question of the existence of a ground state when the boson mass vanishes. The reason is that its existence is an important physical property, and scattering states can be constructed. These describe the ground state together with a finite number of asymptotically free bosons. When there is no ground state, one has an infrared problem. The infrared singularity arises when the number of low energy bosons becomes infinite. In the present paper the authors continue the study of the Nelson model, this time with variable coefficients. The usual Minkowski metric is replaced by a static three-dimensional Lorentzian manifold allowing the boson mass \(m(x)\) to depend on the position. It is assumed that \(m(x)\) tends to zero at spatial infinity. The question is, how fast. Using path integral techniques it is shown that the Hamiltonian has no ground state if \(m(x)\leq C|x|^{-\mu}\) for some \(\mu>1\) at large \(x\).