Temperatures of renormalizable quantum field theories in curved spacetime

Abstract

In this paper we compute the temperature registered by an Unruh-DeWitt detector coupled to a Hadamard renormalizable quantum field in an arbitrary state, moving along an accelerated trajectory in a curved spacetime. For a massless and conformally invariant field, the generalized expression for the temperature is given by the quadratic sum of the 4-acceleration, Raychaudhuri scalar, and renormalized field polarization. We can further find a novel constraint on the renormalized quantum field polarization in relativistic systems that are in global thermal equilibrium.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravity