arXiv subjects

Stefan Hofmann

Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Hofmann.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

A local diagnostic program for unitary evolution in general space-times

We present a local framework for investigating non-unitary evolution groups pertinent to effective field theories in general semi-classical spacetimes. Our approach is based on a rigorous local stability analysis of the algebra of observables and solely employs geometric concepts in the functional representation of quantum field theory. In this representation, it is possible to construct infinitely many self-adjoint extensions of the canonical momentum field at the kinematic level, and by the usual functional calculus arguments this holds for the Hamiltonian, as well. However, these self-adjoint domains have only the trivial wave functional in common with the solution space of the functional Schrödinger equation. This is related to the existence of boundaries in configuration field space which can be penetrated by the probability flux, causing probability to leak into regions in configuration field space that require a more fundamental description. As a consequence the evolution admits no unitary representation. Instead, in the absence of ghosts, the evolution is represented by contractive semi-groups in the semiclassical approximation. This allows to quantify the unitarity loss and, in turn, to assess the quality of the semi-classical approximation. We perform numerical experiments based on our formal investigations to determine regions in cosmological spacetimes where the semiclassical approximation breaks down for free quantum fields.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Emerging entanglement on network histories

We show that quantum fields confined to Lorentzian histories of freely falling networks in Minkowski spacetime probe entanglement properties of vacuum fluctuations that extend unrestricted across spacetime regions. Albeit instantaneous field configurations are localized on one-dimensional edges, angular momentum emerges on these network histories and establish the celebrated area scaling of entanglement entropy.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Dark Matter Jets of Rotating Black Holes

We present a novel approach which produces Dark Matter jets along the rotation axis of Kerr black holes utilizing the Penrose process. The properties of these jets are investigated, as well as their potential to create Dark Matter overdensities in the solar system and in the vicinity of the black hole. We discover a highly collimated and long-range Dark Matter jet with a density that is most sensitive to the mass and distance to the black hole.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Perturbative quantum consistency near black-hole horizon formation

We study the prelude to black-hole formation using a suspended shell composed of physical matter that fulfills the dominant energy condition. Here, the collapse of the shell is brought to rest when the formation of the horizon is imminent but has not yet occurred. As the main achievement of this work, we obtain the Feynman propagator which connects the interior and the exterior of the shell within two local coordinate patches. It is derived by drawing an analogy to the propagation of light across interfaces that separate regions with different susceptibilities inside a medium. As a first application, we use this propagator to determine the vacuum persistence amplitude in the presence of external sources. On timescales much shorter than the Page time, we find that the amplitude builds up with time yet remains consistent with perturbative unitarity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Quantum Populations near Black-Hole Singularities

Schwarzschild black-hole interiors border on space-like singularities representing classical information leaks. We show that local quantum physics is decoupled from these leaks due to dynamically generated boundaries, called Zeno borders. Beyond Zeno borders black-hole interiors become asymptotically silent, and quantum fields evolve freely towards the geodesic singularity with vanishing probability measure for populating the geodesic boundary. Thus Zeno borders represent a probabilistic completion of Schwarzschild black holes within the semiclassical framework.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Cosmic structure formation in a flavoured U$\left(1\right)$ dark sector at small scales

In this work we study the footprint of a secluded dark sector with a U$\left(1\right)$ gauge symmetry on the formation of cosmic structure at small scales. A single generation of dark fermions with mass in the TeV range is able to elegantly solve all small-scale issues of structure formation, while still being consistent with the cosmological history of the universe. A new interaction at the MeV scale is introduced for this purpose. As a generalization we consider multiple generations of fermions as well and show that such extensions are also cosmologically viable and allow a more flexible choice of the parameters of the theory.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Physics in precision-dependent normal neighborhoods

We introduce a procedure to determine the size and shape of normal neighborhoods in any spacetimes and their dependence on the precision of the measurements performed by arbitrary observers. As an example, we consider the Schwarzschild geometry in Riemann and Fermi normal coordinates and determine the size and shape of normal neighborhoods in the vicinity of the event horizon. Depending on the observers, normal neighborhoods extend to the event horizon and even beyond into the black hole interior. It is shown that the causal structure supported by normal neighborhoods across an event horizon is consistent with general relativity. In particular, normal neighborhoods reaching over an event horizon are void of the Schwarzschild coordinate singularity. In addition, we introduce a new variant of normal coordinates which we call Fermi normal coordinates around a point, unifying features of Riemann and Fermi normal coordinates, and analyze their neighborhoods.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2019

A Quantum Complete Prelude to Inflation

It is shown that the inflationary paradigm admits quantum complete extensions of space-time. The extended inflationary spacetimes still have geodesic borders, but quantum fields are prohibited from migrating across these borders by their evolution semigroups. The geodesic singularities lurking across the borders lack a physical description because the evolution semigroups give vanishing probabilistic support to quantum fields for populating regions bordering on these singularities. As an example, anisotropic Bianchi type-I cosmologies are shown to be quantum complete preludes to inflation. They admit Kasner-like geometries close to their geodesic borders. Quantum fields enjoy a contractive evolution in these asymptotic regions and ultimately become free. As a consequence, quantum probes cannot migrate across the geodesic border of Bianchi type-I cosmologies.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Small-scale structure from charged leptophilia

We consider a charged leptophilic extension of the Standard Model of particle physics as a minimal dark sector. It accomodates a WIMP paradigm at the TeV-scale that is sufficient to solve all small-scale problems of $Λ$CDM and explain the excess of highly energetic cosmic ray Standard Model electrons and positrons presented recently by the DAMPE collaboration. The predictive power of this model allows to test it in the near future.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Cosmological singlet diagnostics of neutrinophilic dark matter

The standard model of particle physics is extended by adding a purely neutrinophilic dark sector. It is shown that theories which accommodate standard model neutrinos as dark radiation are resurrected. Sterile neutrinos bridge the visible and the dark sector and can keep their mutual interactions effective even after the epoch of big bang nucleosythesis. This prolonged contact between dark matter and standard model neutrinos solves the well-known small-scale structure problems of the cosmological standard model. The dark sector presented in this work satisfies all experimental and observational constraints from particle physics and cosmology.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Leptonic decay constants for D-mesons from 3-flavour CLS ensembles

We report on the status of an ongoing effort by the RQCD and ALPHA Collaborations, aimed at determining leptonic decay constants of charmed mesons. Our analysis is based on large-volume ensembles generated within the CLS effort, employing N_f=2+1 non-perturbatively O(a) improved Wilson quarks, tree-level Symanzik-improved gauge action and open boundary conditions. The ensembles cover lattice spacings from a ~ 0.09 fm to a ~ 0.05 fm, with pion masses varied from 420 to 200 MeV. To extrapolate to the physical masses, we follow both the 2m_l+m_s=const. and the m_s=const. lines in parameter space.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2017

Non-Gaussian ground-state deformations near a black-hole singularity

The singularity theorem by Hawking and Penrose qualifies Schwarzschild black-holes as geodesic incomplete space-times. Albeit this is a mathematically rigorous statement, it requires an operational framework that allows to probe the space-like singularity via a measurement process. Any such framework necessarily has to be based on quantum theory. As a consequence, the notion of classical completeness needs to be adapted to situations where the only adequate description is in terms of quantum fields in dynamical space-times. It is shown that Schwarzschild black-holes turn out to be complete when probed by self-interacting quantum fields in the ground state and in excited states. The measure for populating quantum fields on hypersurfaces in the vicinity of the black-hole singularity goes to zero towards the singularity. This statement is robust under non-Gaussian deformations of and excitations relative to the ground state. The clash of completeness cultures as exemplified with black holes is discussed.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Charmed pseudoscalar decay constants on three-flavour CLS ensembles with open boundaries

We determine the masses and pseudoscalar decay constants of D and D_s mesons employing lattice QCD with non-perturbatively O(a) improved Wilson quarks and a tree-level Symanzik-improved gauge action. Our analysis is based on the large-volume N_f=2+1 ensembles using open boundary conditions, generated within the CLS effort. The status of results presented here covers two lattice spacings, a ~ 0.0854 fm and a ~ 0.0644 fm, and pion masses varied from 420 to 200 MeV. We also report on our implementation of distance preconditioning for the calculation of heavy quark propagators and discuss the impact of the resulting accuracy improvements on the extraction of charmed meson masses and decay constants. This is part of a continuing analysis by the RQCD and ALPHA Collaborations, aiming at a stable continuum extrapolation using several lattice spacings. To extrapolate to the physical masses, we follow both, the (2*m_l+m_s)=const. and the m_s=const. line in parameter space.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2016

Thermal decoupling of WIMPs from first principles

Weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are arguably the most natural DM candidates from a particle physics point of view. After their number density has frozen out in the early universe, determining their relic density today, WIMPs are still kept very close to thermal equilibrium by scattering events with standard model particles. The complete decoupling from the thermal bath happens as late as around 1-10 MeV, thereby setting an important cosmological scale that can directly be translated into a small-scale cutoff of the spectrum of matter density fluctuations. We present here a full analytic treatment of the kinetic decoupling process from first principles. This allows an exact determination of the decoupling scale, for an arbitrary WIMP candidate and any scattering amplitude. As an application, we consider the situation of the lightest supersymmetric particle as well as the lightest Kaluza-Klein particle that arises in theories with universal extra dimensions; furthermore, we show that our formalism can also easily be applied to, e.g., the evolution of the non-relativistic electrons into the recombination regime. Finally, we comment on the impacts for the smallest gravitationally bound structures and the prospects for the indirect detection of dark matter.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

A Quantum Bound-State Description of Black Holes

A relativistic framework for the description of bound states consisting of a large number of quantum constituents is presented, and applied to black-hole interiors. At the parton level, the constituent distribution, number and energy density inside black holes are calculated, and gauge corrections are discussed. A simple scaling relation between the black hole mass and constituent number is established.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Classical versus quantum completeness

The notion of quantum-mechanical completeness is adapted to situations where the only adequate description is in terms of quantum field theory in curved space-times. It is then shown that Schwarzschild black holes, although geodesically incomplete, are quantum complete.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Probing the Constituent Structure of Black Holes

Based on recent ideas, we propose a framework for the description of black holes in terms of constituent graviton degrees of freedom. Within this formalism a large black hole can be understood as a bound state of N longitudinal gravitons. In this context black holes are similar to baryonic bound states in quantum chromodynamics which are described by fundamental quark degrees of freedom. As a quantitative tool we employ a quantum bound state description originally developed in QCD that allows to consider black holes in a relativistic Hartree like framework. As an application of our framework we calculate the cross section for scattering processes between graviton emitters outside of a Schwarzschild black hole and absorbers in its interior, that is gravitons. We show that these scatterings allow to directly extract structural observables such as the momentum distribution of black hole constituents.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

The Universe as a Cosmic String

The cosmology of brane induced gravity in six infinite dimensions is investigated. It is shown that a brane with Friedmann-Robertson-Walker symmetries necessarily acts as a source of cylindrically symmetric gravitational waves, so called Einstein-Rosen waves. Their existence essentially distinguishes this model from its codimension-one counterpart and necessitates solving the nonlinear system of bulk and brane-matching equations. A numerical analysis is performed and two qualitatively different and dynamically separated classes of cosmologies are derived: degravitating solutions for which the Hubble parameter settles to zero despite the presence of a non-vanishing energy density on the brane and super-accelerating solutions for which Hubble grows unbounded. The parameter space of both the stable and unstable regime is derived and observational consequences are discussed: It is argued that the degravitating regime does not allow for a phenomenologically viable cosmology. On the other hand, the super-accelerating solutions are potentially viable, however, their unstable behavior questions their physical relevance.

gr-qc↗