Systematics of the relationship between vacuum energy calculations and heat-kernel coefficients

DOI10.1088/0305-4470/36/24/320MaRDI QIDQ4450171zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors

Publication date 15 February 2004

Published in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0302117

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Heat and other parabolic equation methods for PDEs on manifolds (58J35) Determinants and determinant bundles, analytic torsion (58J52) Axiomatic quantum field theory; operator algebras (81T05) Quantum field theory on curved space or space-time backgrounds (81T20)

Abstract: Casimir energy is a nonlocal effect; its magnitude cannot be deduced from heat kernel expansions, even those including the integrated boundary terms. On the other hand, it is known that the divergent terms in the regularized (but not yet renormalized) total vacuum energy are associated with the heat kernel coefficients. Here a recent study of the relations among the eigenvalue density, the heat kernel, and the integral kernel of the operator $e^{-tsqrtH}$ is exploited to characterize this association completely. Various previously isolated observations about the structure of the regularized energy emerge naturally. For over 20 years controversies have persisted stemming from the fact that certain (presumably physically meaningful) terms in the renormalized vacuum energy density in the interior of a cavity become singular at the boundary and correlate to certain divergent terms in the regularized total energy. The point of view of the present paper promises to help resolve these issues.

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Cited in

(16)

• Some developments of the Casimir effect in \(p\)-cavity of \((D + 1)\)-dimensional space-time
• A global approach with cutoff exponential function, mathematically well defined at the outset, for calculating the Casimir energy: the example of scalar field
• Resonant alteration of propagation in guiding structures with complex Robin parameter and its magnetic-field-induced restoration
• The heat kernel expansion for the electromagnetic field in a cavity
• WIGHTMAN FUNCTION AND CASIMIR DENSITIES FOR ROBIN PLATES IN THE FULLING–RINDLER VACUUM
• Virial coefficients expressed by heat kernel coefficients
• Casimir energy for a purely dielectric cylinder by the mode summation method
• Mass dependence of vacuum energy
• Surface Casimir densities on a spherical brane in Rindler-like spacetimes
• Wightman function and Casimir densities on AdS bulk with application to the Randall--Sundrum braneworld
• Some subtleties in the relationships among heat kernel invariants, eigenvalue distributions, and quantum vacuum energy
• Riemann zeta zeros and zero-point energy
• Light-cone fluctuations and the renormalized stress tensor of a massless scalar field
• Energy density and pressure in power-wall models
• Finite size effects in thermal field theory
• Quantum corrections to the mass of the supersymmetric vortex

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