The trace anomaly and dynamical vacuum energy in cosmology

DOI10.1142/S0217751X10049670zbMATH Open1193.81103arXiv1006.3567WikidataQ124935418 ScholiaQ124935418MaRDI QIDQ3583152FDOQ3583152

Authors: Emil Mottola 

Publication date: 26 August 2010

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

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.

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

Recommendations

• On cosmological implications of gravitational trace anomaly
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 6781591
• Conformal anomaly and large-scale gravitational coupling.
• Cosmological implication of the trace anomaly
• Trace anomaly and backreaction of the dynamical Casimir effect

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)

Cites Work

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

Cited In (11)

• Conformal anomaly and large-scale gravitational coupling.
• Conformal anomalies and the Einstein field equations
• On the equations of state for the quantum vacuum terms
• On cosmological implications of gravitational trace anomaly
• On the perturbative stability of quantum field theories in de Sitter space
• 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
• Nonlinear electrodynamics and black holes
• Cosmological implication of the trace anomaly
• Perturbative quantum gravity comes of age
• A note on vacuum energy from the de Sitter spectrum

This page was built for publication: The trace anomaly and dynamical vacuum energy in cosmology

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q3583152)