Approaches to Quantum Field Theory in Curved Space
Al Angew
Oregon State University
, 4 June, 5 PM
318 Willamette Hall, University of Oregon
This talk is a preliminary report on work in progress on the development of a
new approach to the quantization of the scalar field in curved space. A key
problem in curved space quantization is the determination of a
positive/negative frequency decomposition of the solution space, which is
needed in order to build the usual Fock space of states. Most of the standard
approaches are essentially attempts to identify a quantity (complex structure,
Feynman propagator, Lichnerowicz kernel) that determines such a decomposition,
using canonical quantization in Minkowski space as a guide. For
asymptotically static spacetimes, the approaches listed above are known to
agree. The new approach is based on an alternative mode expansion of the
fields, labeled by spacetime position, as opposed to momentum.
Some advantages of the new approach, as well as its relation to the standard
approaches, will be discussed.