Two routes to the Hadamard condition

Abstract

In quantum field theory on curved spacetime, the Hadamard condition is often presented as a necessary condition on 'physically reasonable', 'vacuum-like' states of linear quantum fields, and plays a central role in many theoretical and foundational applications - ranging from proofs of the renormalizability of Wick polynomials to derivations of the Hawking temperature. In this paper, I strengthen, generalise, and bring under technical control two popular motivations for the Hadamard condition - one which appeals to the role of Hadamard states in defining physical quantities such as Wick polynomials and the expectation value of the stress-energy operator on general curved spacetime backgrounds, and one which appeals to the equivalence principle. This clarifies the role and status of the Hadamard condition, including its relationship to the equivalence principle, to well-definedness of physical quantities such as Wick polynomials and the expectation value of the stress-energy operator, and the sense in which Hadamard states are 'vacuum-like'.