Thermal Properties of Accelerated States in Quantum Field Theory

João Braga de Góes Vasconcellos, Nicolò Drago, Nicola Pinamonti

F. C. Khanna, Adolfo P. C. Malbouisson, J. M. C. Malbouisson +1 more

Christian D. Jäkel

We study the cluster properties of thermal equilibrium states in theories with a maximal propagation velocity (such as relativistic QFT). Our analysis, carried out in the setting of algebraic quantum field theory, shows that there is a tight relation between spectral properties of the generator of time translations and the decay of spatial correlations in thermal equilibrium states, in complete analogy to the well understood case of the vacuum state.

Waheed A. Dar, Prince Ahmad Ganai, Nirmalya Kajuri

Padmanabhan and Kolekar had demonstrated the phenomenon of recursive thermality in two dimensional free field theories where the Rindler vacuum appears thermal to an observer accelerated with respect to the Rindler observer. We study the same construction at an algebraic level for conformal field theories. At each step, a parent wedge is conformally mapped to a reference Minkowski spacetime, where a new right Rindler wedge and its left sibling are selected. We illustrate that under the Bisognano--Wichmann property, thermality holds at every generation: the state associated with a parent wedge becomes a KMS state when restricted to its right child. Further, using the modular structure of the wedge and its causal sibling, we identify the sibling algebra with the modular commutant and derive the corresponding recursive modular flow explicitly.

Tamás S. Bíró

Michael Gransee