paper

Considerations on the Unruh Effect: Causality and Regularization

arXiv:gr-qc/0306022 · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/21/19/011

Abstract

This article is motivated by the observation, that calculations of the Unruh effect based on idealized particle detectors are usually made in a way that involves integrations along the {\em entire} detector trajectory up to the infinitely remote {\em future}. We derive an expression which allows time-dependence of the detector response in the case of a non-stationary trajectory and conforms more explicitely to the principle of causality, namely that the response at a given instant of time depends only on the detectors {\em past} movements. On trying to reproduce the thermal Unruh spectrum we are led to an unphysical result, which we trace down to the use of the standard regularization $t\to t-i\eps$ of the correlation function. By consistently employing a rigid detector of finite extension, we are led to a different regularization which works fine with our causal response function.

19 pages, 2 figures, v2: some minor changes

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