The trace anomaly and dynamical vacuum energy in cosmology

DOI10.1142/S0217751X10049670MaRDI QIDQ3583152zbMATHWikidataFDO

Authors Emil Mottola

Publication date 26 August 2010

Published in International Journal of Modern Physics A (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1006.3567

zbMATH Keywords

cosmological constantCasimir effectdark energyvacuum energytrace anomaly

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Anomalies in quantum field theory (81T50) Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05) Relativistic cosmology (83F05) Casimir effect in quantum field theory (81T55)

Abstract: The trace anomaly of conformal matter implies the existence of massless scalar poles in physical amplitudes involving the stress-energy tensor. These poles may be described by a local effective action with massless scalar fields, which couple to classical sources, contribute to gravitational scattering processes, and can have long range gravitational effects at macroscopic scales. In an effective field theory approach, the effective action of the anomaly is an infrared relevant term that should be added to the Einstein-Hilbert action of classical General Relativity to take account of macroscopic quantum effects. The additional scalar degrees of freedom contained in this effective action may be understood as responsible for both the Casimir effect in flat spacetime and large quantum backreaction effects at the horizon scale of cosmological spacetimes. These effects of the trace anomaly imply that the cosmological vacuum energy is dynamical, and its value depends on macroscopic boundary conditions at the cosmological horizon scale, rather than sensitivity to the extreme ultraviolet Planck scale.

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Cites work

• Stress-energy tensor of quantized scalar fields in static spherically symmetric spacetimes
• Two-dimensional gravitational anomalies, Schwinger terms, and dispersion relations

Cited in

(14)

• On the equations of state for the quantum vacuum terms
• The effective theory of gravity and dynamical vacuum energy
• Cosmological implication of the trace anomaly
• On the trace-free Einstein equations as a viable alternative to general relativity
• Dynamic cancellation of a cosmological constant and approach to the Minkowski vacuum
• Trace anomaly, Perelman's functionals and the cosmological constant
• Conformal anomaly and large-scale gravitational coupling.
• Nonlinear electrodynamics and black holes
• Perturbative quantum gravity comes of age
• On cosmological implications of gravitational trace anomaly
• A new gravitational action for the trace anomaly
• Conformal anomalies and the Einstein field equations
• A note on vacuum energy from the de Sitter spectrum
• On the perturbative stability of quantum field theories in de Sitter space

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