Poincaré invariance and the Unruh effect

Abstract

In quantum field theory, the vacuum is popularly considered to be a complex medium populated with virtual particle + antiparticle pairs. To an observer experiencing uniform acceleration, it is generally held that these virtual particles become real, appearing as a gas at a temperature that grows with the acceleration. This is the Unruh effect. However, it has been shown that vacuum complexity is an artifact, produced by treating quantum field theory in a manner that does not manifestly enforce causality. Choosing a quantization approach that patently enforces causality, the quantum field theory vacuum is barren, bereft even of virtual particles. We show that acceleration has no effect on a trivial vacuum; hence, there is no Unruh effect in such a treatment of quantum field theory. Since the standard calculations suggesting an Unruh effect are formally consistent, insofar as they have been completed, there must be a cancelling contribution that is omitted in the usual analyses. We argue that it is the dynamical action of conventional Lorentz transformations on the structure of an Unruh detector.

20 pages, 4 Figures. Version published in Particles