Semi-local Bounds on Null Energy in QFT
Jackson R. Fliss, Ben Freivogel
SciPost Phys. 12, 084 (2022) · published 7 March 2022
- doi: 10.21468/SciPostPhys.12.3.084
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Abstract
We investigate whether the null energy, averaged over some region of space- time, is bounded below in QFT. First, we use light-sheet quantization to prove a version of the “Smeared Null Energy Condition” (SNEC) proposed in [1], applicable for free and super-renormalizable QFT’s equipped with a UV cut- off. Through an explicit construction of squeezed states, we show that the SNEC bound cannot be improved by smearing on a light-sheet alone. We propose that smearing the null energy over two null directions defines an op- erator that is bounded below and independent of the UV cutoff, in what we call the “Double-Smeared Null Energy Condition,” or DSNEC. We indicate schematically how this bound behaves with respect to the smearing lengths and argue that the DSNEC displays a transition when the smearing lengths are comparable to the correlation length.
Cited by 4
Authors / Affiliations: mappings to Contributors and Organizations
See all Organizations.- 1 Jackson R. Fliss,
- 1 2 Ben Freivogel
- 1 Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam [IoP, UvA]
- 2 Universiteit van Amsterdam / University of Amsterdam [UvA]