arXiv subjects

Guillermo A. Mena Marugán

Publications and source records attributed to Guillermo A. Mena Marugán.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

The time-dependent mass of cosmological perturbations in loop quantum cosmology: Dapor-Liegener regularization

In this work, we compute the time-dependent masses that govern the dynamics of scalar and tensor perturbations propagating on an effective flat, homogeneous, and isotropic background within the framework of loop quantum cosmology, regularized according to the procedure put forward by Dapor and Liegener. To do so, we follow the two main approaches that, in the field of loop quantum cosmology, lead to hyperbolic equations for the perturbations in the ultraviolet sector: the hybrid and dressed metric formalisms. This allows us to compare the masses resulting from both proposals and analyze their positivity in regimes of physical interest: the big bounce and the contracting de Sitter phase in the asymptotic past that is a defining feature of the model under consideration.

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arXiv2019

Quantum linear scalar fields with time dependent potentials: Overview and applications to cosmology

In this work, we present an overview of uniqueness results derived in recent years for the quantization of Gowdy cosmological models and for (test) Klein-Gordon fields minimally coupled to Friedmann-Lema\^ıtre-Robertson-Walker, de Sitter, and Bianchi I spacetimes. These results are attained by imposing the criteria of symmetry invariance and of unitary implementability of the dynamics. This powerful combination of criteria allows not only to address the ambiguity in the representation of the canonical commutation relations, but also to single out a preferred set of fundamental variables. For the sake of clarity and completeness in the presentation (essentially as a background and complementary material), we first review the classical and quantum theories of a scalar field in globally hyperbolic spacetimes. Special emphasis is made on complex structures and the unitary implementability of symplectic transformations.

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arXiv2019

Fock quantization of the Dirac field in hybrid quantum cosmology: Relation with adiabatic states

We study the relation between the Fock representations for a Dirac field given by the adiabatic scheme and the unique family of vacua with a unitarily implementable quantum evolution that is employed in hybrid quantum cosmology. This is done in the context of a perturbed flat cosmology that, in addition, is minimally coupled to fermionic perturbations. In our description, we use a canonical formulation for the entire system, formed by the underlying cosmological spacetime and all its perturbations. After introducing an adiabatic scheme that was originally developed in the context of quantum field theory in fixed cosmological backgrounds, we find that all adiabatic states belong to the unitary equivalence class of Fock representations that allow a unitarily implementable quantum evolution. In particular, this unitarity of the dynamics ensures that the vacua defined with adiabatic initial conditions at different times are unitarily equivalent. We also find that, for all adiabatic orders other than zero, these initial conditions allow the definition of annihilation and creation operators for the Dirac field that lead to some finite backreaction in the quantum Hamiltonian constraint and to a fermionic Hamiltonian operator that is properly defined in the span of the \textit{n}-particle/antiparticle states, in the context of hybrid quantum cosmology.

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arXiv2019

Hamiltonian diagonalization in hybrid quantum cosmology

We explore the possibility of selecting a natural vacuum state for scalar and tensor gauge-invariant cosmological perturbations in the context of hybrid quantum cosmology, by identifying those variables for the description of the perturbations that display a dynamical behavior adapted to the evolution of the entire cosmology. We make use of a canonical formulation of the whole of the cosmological system in which the perturbative gauge-invariant degrees of freedom are identified as canonical variables. Introducing background-dependent linear canonical transformations on these perturbations and completing them for the entire system, we are able to characterize a generic collection of annihilation and creationlike variables that obey the dynamics dictated by a respective collection of Hamiltonians. We then impose that such Hamiltonians possess no self-interaction terms so that, in a Fock representation with normal ordering, they act diagonally on the basis of $n$-particle states. This leads to a semilinear first-order partial differential equation with respect to the background for the coefficients that define the annihilation and creationlike variables for all Fourier modes, as well as to a very precise ultraviolet characterization of them. Such first-order equation contains, in the imaginary part of its complex solutions, the complicated second-order field equation that typically arises for the time-dependent frequency of the perturbations in the context of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes. We check that the asymptotic knowledge acquired allows one to select the standard vacua in Minkowski and de Sitter spacetimes. Finally, we discuss the relation of our vacuum and the standard adiabatic vacua, and check that our asymptotic characterization of variables with a diagonal Hamiltonian displays the properties that would be desirable for an adiabatic state of infinite order.

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arXiv2019

The Martin-Benito-Mena Marugan-Olmedo prescription for the Dapor-Liegener model of Loop Quantum Cosmology

Recently, an alternative Hamiltonian constraint for Loop Quantum Cosmology has been put forward by Dapor and Liegener, inspired by previous work on regularization due to Thiemann. Here, we quantize this Hamiltonian following a prescription for cosmology proposed by Mart\'ın-Benito, Mena Marugán, and Olmedo. To this effect, we first regularize the Euclidean and Lorentzian parts of the Hamiltonian constraint separately in the case of a Bianchi I cosmology. This allows us to identify a natural symmetrization of the Hamiltonian which is apparent in anisotropic scenarios. Preserving this symmetrization in isotropic regimes, we then determine the Hamiltonian constraint corresponding to a Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker cosmology, which we proceed to quantize. We compute the action of this Hamiltonian operator in the volume eigenbasis and show that it takes the form of a fourth-order difference equation, unlike in standard Loop Quantum Cosmology, where it is known to be of second order. We investigate the superselection sectors of our constraint operator, proving that they are semilattices supported only on either the positive or the negative semiaxis, depending on the triad orientation. Remarkably, the decoupling between semiaxes allows us to write a closed expression for the generalized eigenfunctions of the geometric part of the constraint. This expression is totally determined by the values at the two points of the semilattice that are closest to the origin, namely the two contributions with smallest eigenvolume. This is in clear contrast with the situation found for the standard Hamiltonian of Loop Quantum Cosmology, where only the smallest value is free. This result indicates that the degeneracy of the new geometric Hamiltonian operator is equal to two, doubling the possible number of solutions with respect to the conventional quantization considered until now.

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arXiv2019

Asymptotic diagonalization of the fermionic Hamiltonian in hybrid loop quantum cosmology

We use the freedom available in hybrid loop quantum cosmology to split the degrees of freedom between the geometry and the matter fields so as to build a quantum field theory for the matter content with good quantum properties. We investigate this issue in an inflationary, flat cosmology with inhomogeneous perturbations, and focus the discussion on a Dirac field, minimally coupled to the cosmological background and treated as a perturbation. After truncating the action at the lowest nontrivial order in perturbations, one must define canonical variables for the matter content, for which one generally employs canonical transformations that mix the homogeneous background and the perturbations. Each of these possible definitions comes associated with a different matter contribution to the Hamiltonian of the complete system, that may, in general, contain terms that are quadratic in creationlike variables, and in annihilationlike variables, with the subsequent production and destruction of pairs of fermionic particles and antiparticles. We determine a choice of the fermionic canonical variables for which the interaction part of the Hamiltonian can be made as negligible as desired in the asymptotic regime of large particle/antiparticle wave numbers. Finally, we study the quantum dynamics for this choice, imposing the total Hamiltonian constraint on the quantum states and assuming that their gravitational part is not affected significantly by the presence of fermions. In this way, we obtain a Schrödinger equation for the fermionic degrees of freedom in terms of quantum expectation values of the geometry that leads to asymptotically diagonal Heisenberg relations and Bogoliubov evolution transformations, with no divergences in the associated normal-ordered Hamiltonian.

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arXiv2018

Backreaction of fermionic perturbations in the Hamiltonian of hybrid loop quantum cosmology

We discuss the freedom available in hybrid loop quantum cosmology to define canonical variables for the matter content and investigate whether this can be used to derive a quantum field theory with good properties for the matter sector. We study a primordial, inflationary, cosmological spacetime with inhomogeneous perturbations at lowest nontrivial order, and focus our attention on the contribution of minimally coupled fermionic perturbations of Dirac type. Within the framework of the hybrid quantization, we analyze the different possible separations of the homogeneous background and the inhomogeneous perturbations, by means of canonical transformations that mix the two separated sectors. These possibilities provide a family of sets of annihilation and creationlike fermionic variables, each of them with a different associated contribution to the total Hamiltonian. In all cases, imposing the quantum constraints and introducing a Born-Oppenheimer approximation, one can derive a Schrödinger equation for the fermionic part of the wave functions. The resulting evolution turns out to be generated, for each of the allowed choices of variables, by a version of the fermionic contribution to the Hamiltonian which is obtained by evaluating all the dependence on the homogeneous geometry at quantum expectation values. This equation contains a term that encodes the backreaction of the fermionic perturbations on the quantum dynamics of the homogeneous sector. We analyze this backreaction by solving the associated Heisenberg evolution of the fermionic annihilation and creation operators. Then, we identify the conditions that the choice of those operators must satisfy in order to lead to a finite backreaction. Finally, we discuss further restrictions on this choice so that the fermionic Hamiltonian that dictates the Schrödinger dynamics is densely defined in Fock space.

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arXiv2018

The Vacuum State of Primordial Fluctuations in Hybrid Loop Quantum Cosmology

We investigate the role played by the vacuum of the primordial fluctuations in hybrid Loop Quantum Cosmology. We consider scenarios where the inflaton potential is a mass term and the unperturbed quantum geometry is governed by the effective dynamics of Loop Quantum Cosmology. In this situation, the phenomenologically interesting solutions have a preinflationary regime where the kinetic energy of the inflaton dominates over the potential. For these kind of solutions, we show that the primordial power spectra depend strongly on the choice of vacuum. We study in detail the case of adiabatic states of low order and the non-oscillating vacuum introduced by Martín de Blas and Olmedo, all imposed at the bounce. The adiabatic spectra are typically suppressed at large scales, and display rapid oscillations with an increase of power at intermediate scales. In the non-oscillating vacuum, there is power suppression for large scales, but the rapid oscillations are absent. We argue that the oscillations are due to the imposition of initial adiabatic conditions in the region of kinetic dominance, and that they would also be present in General Relativity. Finally, we discuss the sensitivity of our results to changes of the initial time and other data of the model.

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arXiv2018

Time-dependent mass of cosmological perturbations in the hybrid and dressed metric approaches to loop quantum cosmology

Loop quantum cosmology has recently been applied in order to extend the analysis of primordial perturbations to the Planck era and discuss the possible effects of quantum geometry on the cosmic microwave background. Two approaches to loop quantum cosmology with admissible ultraviolet behavior leading to predictions that are compatible with observations are the so-called hybrid and dressed metric approaches. In spite of their similarities and relations, we show in this work that the effective equations that they provide for the evolution of the tensor and scalar perturbations are somewhat different. When backreaction is neglected, the discrepancy appears only in the time- dependent mass term of the corresponding field equations. We explain the origin of this difference, arising from the distinct quantization procedures. Besides, given the privileged role that the big bounce plays in loop quantum cosmology, e.g. as a natural instant of time to set initial conditions for the perturbations, we also analyze the positivity of the time-dependent mass when this bounce occurs. We prove that the mass of the tensor perturbations is positive in the hybrid approach when the kinetic contribution to the energy density of the inflaton dominates over its potential, as well as for a considerably large sector of backgrounds around that situation, while this mass is always nonpositive in the dressed metric approach. Similar results are demonstrated for the scalar perturbations in a sector of background solutions that includes the kinetically dominated ones; namely, the mass then is positive for the hybrid approach, whereas it typically becomes negative in the dressed metric case. More precisely, this last statement is strictly valid when the potential is quadratic for values of the inflaton mass that are phenomenologically favored.

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arXiv2017

Fermions in Hybrid Loop Quantum Cosmology

This work pioneers the quantization of primordial fermion perturbations in hybrid Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC). We consider a Dirac field coupled to a spatially flat, homogeneous, and isotropic cosmology, sourced by a scalar inflaton, and treat the Dirac field as a perturbation. We describe the inhomogeneities of this field in terms of creation and annihilation variables, chosen to admit a unitary evolution if the Dirac fermion were treated as a test field. Considering instead the full system, we truncate its action at quadratic perturbative order and construct a canonical formulation. In particular this implies that, in the global Hamiltonian constraint of the model, the contribution of the homogeneous sector is corrected with a quadratic perturbative term. We then adopt the hybrid LQC approach to quantize the full model, combining the loop representation of the homogeneous geometry with the Fock quantization of the inhomogeneities. We assume a Born-Oppenheimer ansatz for physical states and show how to obtain a Schrödinger equation for the quantum evolution of the perturbations, where the role of time is played by the homogeneous inflaton. We prove that the resulting quantum evolution of the Dirac field is indeed unitary, despite the fact that the underlying homogeneous geometry has been quantized as well. Remarkably, in such evolution, the fermion field couples to an infinite sequence of quantum moments of the homogeneous geometry. Moreover, the evolved Fock vacuum of our fermion perturbations is shown to be an exact solution of the Schrödinger equation. Finally, we discuss in detail the quantum backreaction that the fermion field introduces in the global Hamiltonian constraint. For completeness, our quantum study includes since the beginning (gauge-invariant) scalar and tensor perturbations, that were studied in previous works.

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arXiv2017

Uniqueness of the Fock quantization of Dirac fields in 2+1 dimensions

We study the Fock quantization of a free Dirac field in 2+1-dimensional backgrounds which are conformally ultrastatic, with a time-dependent conformal factor. As it is typical for field theories, there is an infinite ambiguity in the Fock representation of the canonical anticommutation relations. Different choices may lead to unitarily inequivalent theories that describe different physics. To remove this ambiguity one usually requires that the vacuum be invariant under the unitary transformations that implement the symmetries of the equations of motion. However, in non-stationary backgrounds, where time translation is not a symmetry transformation, the requirement of vacuum invariance is in general not enough to fix completely the Fock representation. We show that this problem is overcome in the considered scenario by demanding, in addition, a unitarily implementable quantum dynamics. The combined imposition of these conditions selects a unique family of equivalent Fock representations. Moreover, one also obtains an essentially unique splitting of the time variation of the Dirac field into an explicit dependence on the background scale factor and a quantum evolution of the corresponding creation and annihilation operators.

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arXiv2017

Hybrid loop quantum cosmology and predictions for the cosmic microwave background

We investigate the consequences of the hybrid quantization approach for primordial perturbations in loop quantum cosmology, obtaining predictions for the cosmic microwave background and comparing them with data collected by the Planck mission. In this work, we complete previous studies about the scalar perturbations and incorporate tensor modes. We compute their power spectrum for a variety of vacuum states. We then analyze the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the consistency relation between this quantity and the spectral index of the tensor power spectrum. We also compute the temperature-temperature, electric-electric, temperature-electric, and magnetic-magnetic correlation functions. Finally, we discuss the effects of the quantum geometry in these correlation functions and confront them with observations.

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arXiv2016

Uniqueness of the Fock quantization of scalar fields in a Bianchi I cosmology with unitary dynamics

The Fock quantization of free scalar fields is subject to an infinite ambiguity when it comes to choosing a set of annihilation and creation operators, choice that is equivalent to the determination of a vacuum state. In highly symmetric situations, this ambiguity can be removed by asking vacuum invariance under the symmetries of the system. Similarly, in stationary backgrounds, one can demand time-translation invariance plus positivity of the energy. However, in more general situations, additional criteria are needed. For the case of free (test) fields minimally coupled to a homogeneous and isotropic cosmology, it has been proven that the ambiguity is resolved by introducing the criterion of unitary implementability of the quantum dynamics, as an endomorphism in Fock space. This condition determines a specific separation of the time dependence of the field, so that this splits into a very precise background dependence and a genuine quantum evolution. Furthermore, together with the condition of vacuum invariance under the spatial Killing symmetries, unitarity of the dynamics selects a unique Fock representation for the canonical commutation relations, up to unitary equivalence. In this work, we generalize these results to anisotropic spacetimes with shear, which are therefore not conformally symmetric, by considering the case of a free scalar field in a Bianchi I cosmology.

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arXiv2016

Dirac fields in flat FLRW cosmology: Uniqueness of the Fock quantization

We address the issue of the infinite ambiguity that affects the construction of a Fock quantization of a Dirac field propagating in a cosmological spacetime with flat compact sections. In particular, we discuss a physical criterion that restricts to a unique possibility (up to unitary equivalence) the infinite set of available vacua. We prove that this desired uniqueness is guaranteed, for any possible choice of spin structure on the spatial sections, if we impose two conditions. The first one is that the symmetries of the classical system must be implemented quantum mechanically, so that the vacuum is invariant under the symmetry transformations. The second and more important condition is that the constructed theory must have a quantum dynamics that is implementable as a (non-trivial) unitary operator in Fock space. Actually, this unitarity of the quantum dynamics leads us to identify as explicitly time dependent some very specific contributions of the Dirac field. In doing that, we essentially characterize the part of the dynamics governed by the Dirac equation that is unitarily implementable. The uniqueness of the Fock vacuum is attained then once a physically motivated convention for the concepts of particles and antiparticles is fixed.

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arXiv2016

Unique Fock quantization of a massive fermion field in a cosmological scenario

It is well known that the Fock quantization of field theories in general spacetimes suffers from an infinite ambiguity, owing to the inequivalent possibilities in the selection of a representation of the canonical commutation or anticommutation relations, but also owing to the freedom in the choice of variables to describe the field among all those related by linear time-dependent transformations, including the dependence through functions of the background. In this work we remove this ambiguity (up to unitary equivalence) in the case of a massive Dirac free field propagating in a spacetime with homogeneous and isotropic spatial sections of spherical topology. Two physically reasonable conditions are imposed in order to arrive to this result: (a) The invariance of the vacuum under the spatial isometries of the background, and (b) the unitary implementability of the dynamical evolution that dictates the Dirac equation. We characterize the Fock quantizations with a non trivial fermion dynamics that satisfy these two conditions. Then, we provide a complete proof of the unitary equivalence of the representations in this class under very mild requirements on the time variation of the background, once a criterion to discern between particles and antiparticles has been set.

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arXiv2016

Quantum corrections to the Mukhanov-Sasaki equations

Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to the modifications of the power spectrum of primordial fluctuations caused by quantum cosmology effects. The origin of these modifications are corrections to the Mukhanov-Sasaki equations that govern the propagation of the primeval cosmological perturbations. The specific form of these corrections depends on a series of details of the quantization approach and of the prescription followed to implement it. Generally, nonetheless, the complexity of the theoretical quantum formulation is simplified in practice appealing to a semiclassical or effective approximation, in order to perform concrete numerical computations. In this work, we introduce technical tools and design a procedure to deal with these quantum corrections beyond the most direct approximations employed so far in the literature. In particular, by introducing an interaction picture, we extract the quantum dynamics of the homogeneous geometry in absence of scalar field potential and inhomogeneities, dynamics that has been intensively studied and that can be integrated. The rest of our analysis focuses on the interaction evolution, putting forward methods to cope with it. The ultimate aim is to develop treatments that increase our ability to discriminate between the predictions of different quantization proposals for cosmological perturbations.

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arXiv2015

Gauge-Invariant Perturbations in Hybrid Quantum Cosmology

We consider cosmological perturbations around homogeneous and isotropic spacetimes minimally coupled to a scalar field and present a formulation which is designed to preserve covariance. We truncate the action at quadratic perturbative order and particularize our analysis to flat compact spatial sections and a field potential given by a mass term, although the formalism can be extended to other topologies and potentials. The perturbations are described in terms of Mukhanov-Sasaki gauge invariants, linear perturbative constraints, and variables canonically conjugate to them. This set is completed into a canonical one for the entire system, including the homogeneous degrees of freedom. We find the global Hamiltonian constraint of the model, in which the contribution of the homogeneous sector is corrected with a term quadratic in the perturbations, that can be identified as the Mukhanov-Sasaki Hamiltonian in our formulation. We then adopt a hybrid approach to quantize the model, combining a quantum representation of the homogeneous sector with a more standard field quantization of the perturbations. Covariance is guaranteed in this approach inasmuch as no gauge fixing is adopted. Next, we adopt a Born-Oppenheimer ansatz for physical states and show how to obtain a Schrödinger-like equation for the quantum evolution of the perturbations. This evolution is governed by the Mukhanov-Sasaki Hamiltonian, with the dependence on the homogeneous geometry evaluated at quantum expectation values, and with a time parameter defined also in terms of suitable expectation values on that geometry. Finally, we derive effective equations for the dynamics of the Mukhanov-Sasaki gauge invariants, that include quantum contributions, but have the same ultraviolet limit as the classical equations. They provide the master equation to extract predictions about the power spectrum of primordial scalar perturbations.

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arXiv2015

Modified FRW cosmologies arising from states of the hybrid quantum Gowdy model

We construct approximate solutions of the hybrid quantum Gowdy cosmology with three-torus topology, linear polarization, and local rotational symmetry, in the presence of a massless scalar field. More specifically, we determine some families of states for which the complicated inhomogeneous and anisotropic Hamiltonian constraint operator of the Gowdy model is approximated by a much simpler one. Our quantum states follow the dynamics governed by this simpler constraint, while being at the same time also approximate solutions of the full Gowdy model. This is so thanks to the quantum correlations that the considered states present between the isotropic and anisotropic sectors of the model. Remarkably, this simpler constraint can be regarded as that of a flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe filled with different kinds of perfect fluids and geometrically corrected by homogeneous and isotropic curvature-like terms. Therefore, our quantum states, which are intrinsically inhomogeneous, admit approximate homogeneous and isotropic effective descriptions similar to those considered in modified theories of gravity.

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