arXiv subjects

Jerónimo Cortez

Publications and source records attributed to Jerónimo Cortez.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Time-dependent scalings and Fock quantization of a massless scalar field in Kantowski-Sachs

We address the issue of inequivalent Fock representations in Quantum Field Theory in a curved homogenous and anisotropic background, namely Kantowski-Sachs spacetime. A family of unitarily equivalent Fock representations that are invariant under the spatial isometries and implement a unitary dynamics can be achieved by means of a field redefinition that consists of a specific anisotropic scaling of the field configuration and a linear transformation of its momentum. Remarkably, we show that this kind of field redefinition is in fact unique under our symmetry and unitary requirements. However, the physical properties of the Hamiltonian dynamics that one obtains in this way are not satisfactory, inasmuch as the action of the Hamiltonian on the corresponding particle states is ill defined. To construct a quantum theory without this problem, we need a further canonical transformation that is time- and mode-dependent and is not interpretable as an anisotropic scaling. The old and new Fock representations, nevertheless, are unitarily equivalent. The freedom that is introduced when allowing for this further canonical transformation can be fixed by demanding an asymptotic diagonalization of the Hamiltonian and a minimal absorption of dynamical phases. In this way, the choice of vacuum and the associated Fock representation are asymptotically determined.

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arXiv2023

Fock quantization of a Klein-Gordon field in the interior geometry of a nonrotating black hole

We study the canonical quantization of a scalar field in a Kantowski-Sachs spacetime. For simplicity, we consider compactified spatial sections, since this does not affect the ultraviolet behavior. A time-dependent canonical transformation is performed prior to quantization. As in previously studied cases, the purpose of this canonical transformation is to identify and extract the background contribution to the field evolution which is obstructing a unitary implementation of the field dynamics at the quantum level. This splitting of the time dependence into a background piece and the part to be seen as true quantum evolution is to a large extent determined by the unitarity requirement itself. The quantization is performed in the usual setup of Fock representations, demanding the preservation of the spatial symmetries. Under the joint requirements of quantum unitary dynamics and compatibility with those classical symmetries, the quantization is shown to be unique, in the sense that any two representations with these properties are unitarily equivalent. This confirms the validity of our conditions as criteria to discriminate among possibly inequivalent quantum descriptions. The interest of this analysis goes beyond cosmological applications since the interior of a nonrotating black hole has a geometry of the Kantowski-Sachs type.

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arXiv2021

A Brief Overview of Results about Uniqueness of the Quantization in Cosmology

The purpose of this review is to provide a brief overview of some recent conceptual developments about possible criteria to guarantee the uniqueness of the quantization in a variety of situations that are found in cosmological systems. These criteria impose some conditions on the representation of a group of physically relevant linear transformations. Generally, this group contains any existing symmetry of the spatial sections. These symmetries may or may not be sufficient for the purpose of uniqueness and may have to be complemented with other remaining symmetries that affect the time direction, or with dynamical transformations that in fact are not symmetries. We discuss the extent to which a unitary implementation of the resulting group suffices to fix the quantization, a demand that can be seen as a weaker version of the requirement of invariance. In particular, a strict invariance under certain transformations may eliminate some physically interesting possibilities in the passage to the quantum theory. This is the first review in which this unified perspective is adopted to discuss otherwise rather different uniqueness criteria proposed either in homogeneous loop quantum cosmology or in the Fock quantization of inhomogeneous cosmologies.

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arXiv2021

Uniqueness Criteria for the Fock Quantization of Dirac Fields and Applications in Hybrid Loop Quantum Cosmology

In generic curved spacetimes, the unavailability of a natural choice of vacuum state introduces a serious ambiguity in the Fock quantization of fields. In this review, we study the case of fermions described by a Dirac field in several cosmological spacetimes, and present recent results about well-motivated criteria that ensure the uniqueness in the selection of a vacuum up to unitary transformations. These criteria are based on two requirements. First, the invariance of the vacuum under the symmetries of the Dirac equations in the considered spacetime. Second, the unitary implementability of the Heisenberg dynamics of the annihilation and creation operators when the curved spacetime is treated as a fixed background. This last requirement not only permits the uniqueness of the Fock quantization but, remarkably, it also determines an essentially unique splitting between the phase space variables assigned to the background and the fermionic annihilation and creation variables. We first consider Dirac fields in cosmological spacetimes of 2+1 dimensions and then discuss the more relevant case of 3+1 dimensions. We use this analysis to investigate the hybrid loop quantization of a flat Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker background cosmology coupled to a perturbative Dirac field. Among the Fock quantizations for the fermionic perturbations allowed by our criteria, we further restrict the choice of vacuum by demanding a finite fermionic backreaction and, moreover, by diagonalizing the fermionic contribution to the total Hamiltonian in the asymptotic limit of large wave numbers of the Dirac modes. Finally, we argue in support of the uniquess of the vacuum state selected by the extension of this diagonalization condition beyond the ultraviolet regime, proving that it picks out the standard Poincaré and Bunch-Davies vacua for fixed flat and de Sitter background spacetimes, respectively.

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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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arXiv2018

On the Uniqueness of the Fock Quantization of the Dirac Field in the Closed FRW Cosmology

The Fock quantization of free fields propagating in cosmological backgrounds is in general not unambiguously defined due to the non-stationarity of the spacetime. For the case of a scalar field in cosmological scenarios it is known that the criterion of unitary implementation of the dynamics serves to remove the ambiguity in the choice of Fock representation (up to unitary equivalence). Here, applying the same type of arguments and methods previously used for the scalar field case, we discuss the issue of the uniqueness of the Fock quantization of the Dirac field in the closed FRW spacetime proposed by D'Eath and Halliwell.

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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

On effective loop quantum geometry of Schwarzschild interior

The success of loop quantum cosmology to resolve classical singularities of homogeneous models has led to its application to the classical Schwarszchild black hole interior, which takes the form of a homogeneous Kantowski-Sachs model. The first steps of this were done in pure quantum mechanical terms, hinting at the traversable character of the would-be classical singularity, and then others were performed using effective heuristic models capturing quantum effects that allowed a geometrical description closer to the classical one but avoided its singularity. However, the problem of establishing the link between the quantum and effective descriptions was left open. In this work, we propose to fill in this gap by considering the path-integral approach to the loop quantization of the Kantowski-Sachs model corresponding to the Schwarzschild black hole interior. We show that the transition amplitude can be expressed as a path integration over the imaginary exponential of an effective action which just coincides, under some simplifying assumptions, with the heuristic one. Additionally, we further explore the consequences of the effective dynamics. We prove first that such dynamics imply some rather simple bounds for phase-space variables, and in turn, remarkably, in an analytical way, they imply that various phase-space functions that were singular in the classical model are now well behaved. In particular, the expansion rate, its time derivative, and the shear become bounded, and hence the Raychaudhuri equation is finite term by term, thus resolving the singularities of classical geodesic congruences. Moreover, all effective scalar polynomial invariants turn out to be bounded.

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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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arXiv2015

Unitary evolution and uniqueness of the Fock representation of Dirac fields in cosmological spacetimes

We present a privileged Fock quantization of a massive Dirac field in a closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology, partially selected by the criteria of invariance of the vacuum under the symmetries of the field equations, and unitary implementation of the dynamics. When quantizing free scalar fields in homogeneous and isotropic spacetimes with compact spatial sections, these criteria have been shown to pick out a unique Fock representation (up to unitary equivalence). Here, we employ the same criteria for fermion fields and explore whether that uniqueness result can be extended to the case of the Fock quantization of fermions. For the massive Dirac field, we start by introducing a specific choice of the complex structure that determines the Fock representation. Such structure is invariant under the symmetries of the equations of motion. We then prove that the corresponding representation of the canonical anticommutation relations admits a unitary implementation of the dynamics. Moreover, we construct a rather general class of representations that satisfy the above criteria, and we demonstrate that they are all unitarily equivalent to our previous choice. The complex structures in this class are restricted only by certain conditions on their asymptotic behavior for modes in the ultraviolet sector of the Dirac operator. We finally show that, if one assumes that these asymptotic conditions are in fact trivial once our criteria are fulfilled, then the time-dependent scaling in the definition of the fermionic annihilation and creation-like variables is essentially unique.

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arXiv2014

Unitary evolution and uniqueness of the Fock quantization in flat cosmologies with compact spatial sections

We study the Fock quantization of scalar fields with a time dependent mass in cosmological scenarios with flat compact spatial sections. This framework describes physically interesting situations like, e.g., cosmological perturbations in flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetimes, generally including a suitable scaling of them by a background function. We prove that the requirements of vacuum invariance under the spatial isometries and of a unitary quantum dynamics select (a) a unique canonical pair of field variables among all those related by time dependent canonical transformations which scale the field configurations, and (b) a unique Fock representation for the canonical commutation relations of this pair of variables. Though the proof is generalizable to other compact spatial topologies in three or less dimensions, we focus on the case of the three-torus owing to its relevance in cosmology, paying a especial attention to the role played by the spatial isometries in the determination of the representation.

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arXiv2012

Uniqueness of the Fock quantization of scalar fields under mode preserving canonical transformations varying in time

We study the Fock quantization of scalar fields of Klein-Gordon type in nonstationary scenarios propagating in spacetimes with compact spatial sections, allowing for different field descriptions that are related by means of certain nonlocal linear canonical transformations that depend on time. More specifically, we consider transformations that do not mix eigenmodes of the Laplace-Beltrami operator, which are supposed to be dynamically decoupled. In addition, we assume that the canonical transformations admit an asymptotic expansion for large eigenvalues (in norm) of the Laplace-Beltrami operator in the form of a series of half integer powers. Canonical transformations of this kind are found in the study of scalar perturbations in inflationary cosmologies, relating for instance the physical degrees of freedom of these perturbations after gauge fixing with gauge invariant canonical pairs of Bardeen quantities. We characterize all possible transformations of this type and show that, independently of the initial field description, the combined criterion of requiring (i) invariance of the vacuum under the spatial symmetries and (ii) a unitary implementation of the dynamics, leads to a unique equivalence class of Fock quantizations, all of them related by unitary transformations. This conclusion provides even further robustness to the validity of the proposed criterion, completing the results that have already appeared in the literature about the uniqueness of the Fock quantization under changes of field description when one permits exclusively local time dependent canonical transformations that scale the field configuration.

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arXiv2012

Uniqueness of the Fock quantization of scalar fields in spatially flat cosmological spacetimes

We study the Fock quantization of scalar fields in (generically) time dependent scenarios, focusing on the case in which the field propagation occurs in --either a background or effective-- spacetime with spatial sections of flat compact topology. The discussion finds important applications in cosmology, like e.g. in the description of test Klein-Gordon fields and scalar perturbations in Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime in the observationally favored flat case. Two types of ambiguities in the quantization are analyzed. First, the infinite ambiguity existing in the choice of a Fock representation for the canonical commutation relations, understandable as the freedom in the choice of inequivalent vacua for a given field. Besides, in cosmological situations, it is customary to scale the fields by time dependent functions, which absorb part of the evolution arising from the spacetime, which is treated classically. This leads to an additional ambiguity, this time in the choice of a canonical pair of field variables. We show that both types of ambiguities are removed by the requirements of (a) invariance of the vacuum under the symmetries of the three-torus, and (b) unitary implementation of the dynamics in the quantum theory. In this way, one arrives at a unique class of unitarily equivalent Fock quantizations for the system. This result provides considerable robustness to the quantum predictions and renders meaningful the confrontation with observation.

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arXiv2012

Criteria for the determination of time dependent scalings in the Fock quantization of scalar fields with a time dependent mass in ultrastatic spacetimes

For Klein-Gordon fields, it is well known that there exist an infinite number of nonequivalent Fock representations of the canonical commutation relations and, therefore, of inequivalent quantum theories. A context in which this kind of ambiguities arises and prevents the derivation of robust results is, e.g., in the quantum analysis of cosmological perturbations. In these situations, typically, a suitable scaling of the field by a time dependent function leads to a description in an auxiliary static background, though the nonstationarity still shows up in a time dependent mass. For such a field description, and assuming the compactness of the spatial sections, we recently proved in three or less spatial dimensions that the criteria of a natural implementation of the spatial symmetries and of a unitary time evolution are able to select a unique class of unitarily equivalent vacua, and hence of Fock representations. In this work, we succeed to extend our uniqueness result to the consideration of all possible field descriptions that can be reached by a time dependent canonical transformation which, in particular, involves a scaling of the field by a function of time. This kind of canonical transformations modify the dynamics of the system and introduce a further ambiguity in its quantum description, exceeding the choice of a Fock representation. Remarkably, for any compact spatial manifold in less than four dimensions, we show that our criteria eliminate any possible nontrivial scaling of the field other than that leading to the description in an auxiliary static background. Besides, we show that either no time dependent redefinition of the field momentum is allowed or, if this may happen, the redefinition does not introduce any Fock representation that cannot be obtained by a unitary transformation.

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arXiv2011

A uniqueness criterion for the Fock quantization of scalar fields with time dependent mass

A major problem in the quantization of fields in curved spacetimes is the ambiguity in the choice of a Fock representation for the canonical commutation relations. There exists an infinite number of choices leading to different physical predictions. In stationary scenarios, a common strategy is to select a vacuum (or a family of unitarily equivalent vacua) by requiring invariance under the spacetime symmetries. When stationarity is lost, a natural generalization consists in replacing time invariance by unitarity in the evolution. We prove that, when the spatial sections are compact, the criterion of a unitary dynamics, together with the invariance under the spatial isometries, suffices to select a unique family of Fock quantizations for a scalar field with time dependent mass.

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arXiv2009

Uniqueness of the Fock quantization of a free scalar field on $S^1$ with time dependent mass

We analyze the quantum description of a free scalar field on the circle in the presence of an explicitly time dependent potential, also interpretable as a time dependent mass. Classically, the field satisfies a linear wave equation of the form $\ddotξ-ξ"+f(t)ξ=0$. We prove that the representation of the canonical commutation relations corresponding to the particular case of a massless free field ($f=0$) provides a unitary implementation of the dynamics for sufficiently general mass terms, $f(t)$. Furthermore, this representation is uniquely specified, among the class of representations determined by $S^1$-invariant complex structures, as the only one allowing a unitary dynamics. These conclusions can be extended in fact to fields on the two-sphere possessing axial symmetry. This generalizes a uniqueness result previously obtained in the context of the quantum field description of the Gowdy cosmologies, in the case of linear polarization and for any of the possible topologies of the spatial sections.

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