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arXiv:2603.26121

Probing Unruh Effect from Enhanced Decoherence

Ran Li, Zhong-Xiao Man, Jin Wang

gr-qchep-thquant-phSubmitted Mar 27, 2026• Announced Mar 30, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Apr 28, 2026 (v2)
v1 · Mar 27, 2026v2 · Apr 28, 2026
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Abstract

We investigate the decoherence of an Unruh-DeWitt detector coupled to scalar, electromagnetic, and spinor fields in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. By employing the Schwinger-Keldysh influence functional formalism, we derive a universal scaling law relating the decoherence rate to the proper acceleration $a$ and the scaling dimension $Δ$ of the environmental field operator. By analyzing both sharp (top-hat) and smooth Gaussian switching functions, it is shown that the decoherence rate in the asymptotic long-time limit scales as $a^{2Δ-1}$. This scaling indicates that increasing scaling dimension of the coupling field operators can significantly enhance the decoherence, thereby providing a more sensitive probe of the Unruh effect.

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gr-qcCross-listedarXiv:2512.23892•Dec 31, 2025
We investigate the decoherence of an Unruh-DeWitt detector coupled to scalar, electromagnetic, and spinor fields in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. By employing the Schwinger-Keldysh influence functional formalism, we derive a universal scaling law relating the decoherence rate to the proper acceleration aaa and the scaling dimension ΔΔΔ of the environmental field operator. By analyzing both sharp (top-hat) and smooth Gaussian switching functions, it is shown that the decoherence rate in the asymptotic long-time limit scales as a2Δ−1a^{2Δ-1}a2Δ−1. This scaling indicates that increasing scaling dimension of the coupling field operators can significantly enhance the decoherence, thereby providing a more sensitive probe of the Unruh effect.
A bstract We investigate the decoherence of an Unruh-DeWitt detector coupled to scalar, electromagnetic, and spinor fields in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. By employing the Schwinger-Keldysh influence functional formalism, we derive a universal scaling law relating the decoherence rate to the proper acceleration a and the scaling dimension ∆ of the environmental field operator. By analyzing both sharp (top-hat) and smooth Gaussian switching functions, it is shown that the decoherence rate in the asymptotic long-time limit scales as a 2∆−1 . This scaling indicates that increasing scaling dimension of the coupling field operators can significantly enhance the decoherence, thereby providing a more sensitive probe of the Unruh effect.
Abstract The behavior of accelerating Unruh-DeWitt detectors coupled with a spinor field in (3+1)-dimensional spacetime is investigated. For a single point-like detector with Gaussian switching function, the transition probability increases with the acceleration and thus the antiUnruh effect effect cannot occur. Due to the spinor structure of the Dirac field, UV divergences are encountered in the calculation of the entanglement between the detectors. After introducing some UV cutoff Λ, the negativity of detectors is shown to behave nonmonotonically with respect to the acceleration. Besides, the negativity increases with the cutoff Λ and decreases with the distance between the detectors. The mutual information between the two detectors is also discussed.
A bstract We study the decoherence and thermalization of an Unruh-DeWitt detector linearly coupled to the free massless scalar field in flat spacetime with arbitrary dimensions d ≥ 2. The initial state of the detector is chosen to be a pure state consisting of a linear superposition of ground and excited states, and we calculate the time evolution of reduced density matrix of the detector. Using perturbation method, we analytically derive the transition rate of the detector (the rate of change of the diagonal elements in the density matrix) and the decoherence rate (the rate of change of the off-diagonal elements in the density matrix). We find that the results are not the same in odd and even dimensional spacetimes, but the unitarity of the qubit is preserved in both cases. The real part of the decoherence rate is related to the transition rate, while the imaginary part may contain different forms of divergence terms in different dimensions due to the temporal order product operator and the singularities of the Wightman function for quantum field theory. We derive the recurrence formula to obtain the divergence terms in each dimension and analyze the renormalization problem.
Recently, Danielson, Satishchandran, and Wald (DSW) have proposed a novel source of decoherence for uniformly accelerated charges and masses in spatial superposition in spacetimes containing a bifurcating Killing horizon. Such an effect can be traced back to the emission and absorption of soft photons and gravitons, which effectively act as "which-path'' information probes. This results in the decoherence of any such superposition in a finite proper time. With this in mind, we study the DSW mechanism using a gapless finite-time detector prepared in a spatial superposition of uniformly accelerated paths in Minkowski spacetime that interacts with a massive scalar field. The calculation is nonperturbative. Such a model will enable us to analyze the decoherence process in a more controlled manner, highlighting the main factors that give rise to this interesting mechanism.
Abstract We explore the quantum coherence between a pair of entangled Unruh–DeWitt detectors, interacting with a quantum field, using a nonperturbative approach in a (3+1)-dimensional Minkowski spacetime with instantaneous switching ( δ\delta δ δ -switching). It is intriguing to observe that for a maximally entangled state, increasing the coupling strength enhances the detectors’ initial quantum coherence while simultaneously causing a monotonic decrease in their initial entanglement. This reveals a remarkable phenomenon: through nonperturbative interactions, entangled Unruh–DeWitt detectors can exhibit a dual effect-amplifying quantum coherence while degrading quantum entanglement. This finding stands in stark contrast to previous studies based on perturbative methods or Gaussian switching functions, which generally concluded that interactions between detectors and the field lead to a simultaneous degradation of quantum coherence and entanglement due to environmental decoherence. Notably, while initially separable detectors successfully harvest quantum coherence from the vacuum, entanglement extraction remains fundamentally prohibited. These contrasting behaviors underscore the fundamental distinction between coherence and entanglement as quantum resources, and highlight their complementary roles in field-detector interactions.
While the Unruh effect has traditionally been studied under the assumption of uniform acceleration, a simplification motivated by experimental considerations, it is not necessarily true for all non-inertial motions. We propose a novel approach for the indirect detection of the Unruh effect without relying on the former restriction. Previous studies have shown that probing the decoherence of an Unruh-DeWitt detector can significantly reduce the acceleration required for observing the effect by several orders of magnitude compared to earlier proposals. Building on this idea, we develop a theoretical framework describing a non-inertial observer equipped with a detector undergoing non-uniform, time-dependent acceleration. We show that, in a non-uniformly accelerated Rindler spacetime, the particle distribution perceived in the Minkowski vacuum acquires a time-dependent modification of the standard Unruh spectrum. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the inclusion of quantum entanglement leads to a deformation of the Minkowski vacuum into squeezed states.