arXiv subjects

William A. Hiscock

Publications and source records attributed to William A. Hiscock.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv1997

Quantum effects in the Alcubierre warp drive spacetime

The expectation value of the stress-energy tensor of a free conformally invariant scalar field is computed in a two-dimensional reduction of the Alcubierre ``warp drive'' spacetime. The stress-energy is found to diverge if the apparent velocity of the spaceship exceeds the speed of light. If such behavior occurs in four dimensions, then it appears implausible that ``warp drive'' behavior in a spacetime could be engineered, even by an arbitrarily advanced civilization.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1997

Astrophysical Bounds on Global Strings

Global topological defects produce nonzero stress-energy throughout spacetime, and as a result can have observable gravitational influence on surrounding matter. Gravitational effects of global strings are used to place bounds on their cosmic abundance. The minimum separation between global strings is estimated by considering the defects' contribution to the cosmological energy density. More rigorous constraints on the abundance of global strings are constructed by examining the tidal forces such defects will have on observable astrophysical systems. The small number of observed tidally disrupted systems indicates there can be very few of these objects in the observable universe.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1997

Spinning Down a Black Hole With Scalar Fields

We study the evolution of a Kerr black hole emitting scalar radiation via the Hawking process. We show that the rate at which mass and angular momentum are lost by the black hole leads to a final evolutionary state with nonzero angular momentum, namely $a/M \approx 0.555$.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1997

Semiclassical effects in black hole interiors

First-order semiclassical perturbations to the Schwarzschild black hole geometry are studied within the black hole interior. The source of the perturbations is taken to be the vacuum stress-energy of quantized scalar, spinor, and vector fields, evaluated using analytic approximations developed by Page and others (for massless fields) and the DeWitt-Schwinger approximation (for massive fields). Viewing the interior as an anisotropic collapsing cosmology, we find that minimally or conformally coupled scalar fields, and spinor fields, decrease the anisotropy as the singularity is approached, while vector fields increase the anisotropy. In addition, we find that massless fields of all spins, and massive vector fields, strengthen the singularity, while massive scalar and spinor fields tend to slow the growth of curvature.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1996

Stress-energy of a quantized scalar field in static wormhole spacetimes

Static traversable wormhole solutions of the Einstein equations require ``exotic'' matter which violates the weak energy condition. The vacuum stress-energy of quantized fields has been proposed as the source for this matter. Using the Dewitt-Schwinger approximation, analytic expressions for the stress-energy of a quantized massive scalar field are calculated in five static spherically symmetric Lorentzian wormhole spacetimes. We find that in all cases, for both minimally and conformally coupled scalar fields, the stress-energy does not have the properties needed to support the wormhole geometry.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1996

Quantized fields and temperature in charged dilatonic black hole spacetimes

The stress-energy tensor of a quantized scalar field is computed in the reduced two-dimensional charged dilatonic black hole spacetime of Garfinkle, Horowitz, and Strominger. In order for the stress-energy of quantized fields to be regular on the event horizon in both the extreme string metric and the conformally associated physical metric, it is necessary to assign a nonzero temperature, T = (8 pi e^{phi_0} M)^{-1}, to the extreme string metric, contrary to the expectation that this horizonless spacetime would have a natural temperature of zero.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1995

Nucleation of vacuum phase transitions by topological defects

The Euclidean action is calculated in the thin-wall approximation for a first-order vacuum phase transition in which the bubble appears symmetrically around either a global monopole or a gauge cosmic string. The bubble is assumed to be much larger than the core size of the monopole or string. In both cases the value of the Euclidean action is shown to be reduced below the $O(4)$ symmetric action value, indicating that the topological defects act as effective nucleation sites for vacuum decay.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1995

Renormalization of the charged scalar field in curved space

The DeWitt-Schwinger proper time point-splitting procedure is applied to a massive complex scalar field with arbitrary curvature coupling interacting with a classical electromagnetic field in a general curved spacetime. The scalar field current is found to have a linear divergence. The presence of the external background gauge field is found to modify the stress-energy tensor results of Christensen for the neutral scalar field by adding terms of the form $(eF)^2$ to the logarithmic counterterms. These results are shown to be expected from an analysis of the degree of divergence of scalar quantum electrodynamics.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1995

Thermal divergences on the event horizons of two-dimensional black holes

The expectation value of the stress-energy tensor $\langleT_{μν}\rangle$ of a free conformally invariant scalar field is computed in a general static two-dimensional black hole spacetime when the field is in either a zero temperature vacuum state or a thermal state at a nonzero temperature. It is found that for every static two-dimensional black hole the stress-energy diverges strongly on the event horizon unless the field is in a state at the natural black hole temperature which is defined by the surface gravity of the event horizon. This implies that both extreme and nonextreme two-dimensional black holes can only be in equilibrium with radiation at the natural black hole temperature.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1995

Massive scalar field in multiply connected flat spacetimes

The vacuum expectation value of the stress-energy tensor $\left\langle 0\left| T_{μν} \right|0\right\rangle$ is calculated in several multiply connected flat spacetimes for a massive scalar field with arbitrary curvature coupling. We find that a nonzero field mass always decreases the magnitude of the energy density in chronology-respecting manifolds such as $R^3 \times S^1$, $R^2 \times T^2$, $R^1 \times T^3$, the Möbius strip, and the Klein bottle. In Grant space, which contains nonchronal regions, whether $\left\langle 0\left| T_{μν} \right|0\right\rangle$ diverges on a chronology horizon or not depends on the field mass. For a sufficiently large mass $\left\langle 0\left| T_{μν} \right|0\right\rangle$ remains finite, and the metric backreaction caused by a massive quantized field may not be large enough to significantly change the Grant space geometry.

gr-qc↗

arXiv1995

Semiclassical Stability of the Extreme Reissner-Nordstrom Black Hole

The stress-energy tensor of a free quantized scalar field is calculated in the extreme Reissner-Nordström black hole spacetime in the zero temperature vacuum state. The stress-energy appears to be regular on the event horizon, contrary to the suggestion provided by two-dimensional calculations. An analytic calculation on the event horizon for a thermal state shows that if the temperature is nonzero then the stress-energy diverges strongly there.

gr-qc↗