A Quantum Dominant Energy Condition

Abstract

We propose a quantum dominant energy condition (QDEC) for the stress tensor in the context of quantum field theory in curved spacetimes. A rigorous proof is given for the case of Rindler wedges, and a heuristic discussion about possible generalizations to more general geometric setups, including curved spacetime, is provided. In Minkowski spacetime, we establish a connection with state recovery bounds. We illustrate the QDEC for coherent states of the free scalar field, where it turns out to be related to the ordinary DEC for the stress tensor of the classical solution that defines the coherent state.

27pp, 4 figures, LaTeX