Quantum gravitational effects in an isotropic Universe with torsion

In the framework of the quasiclassical self-consistent approach we consider a nonminimally coupled scalar field which serves as a source of torsion in an isotropic homogeneous Universe. We obtain a local asymptotic expansion for the propagator of the scalar field and the effective action, taking into account the effects of vacuum polarization and interaction of scalar particles with the self-consistent gravitational field. The leading polarization contributions can be represented in general-covariant form. A simplified cosmological model is constructed which takes into account the interaction.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 9, pp. 5–9, September, 1988.     

Photon mass from inflation

We consider vacuum polarization from massless scalar electrodynamics in de Sitter inflation. The theory exhibits a 3+1 dimensional analog of the Schwinger mechanism in which a photon mass is dynamically generated. The mechanism is generic for light scalar fields that couple minimally to gravity. The nonvanishing of the photon mass during inflation may result in magnetic fields on cosmological scales.     

Photon Productions in a Gravitational Collapsing

We study a possible gravitational vacuum-effect, in which vacuum-energy variation is due to variation of gravitational field, vacuum state gains gravitational energy and releases it by spontaneous photon emissions. Based on the path-integral representation, we present a general formulation of vacuum transition matrix and energy-momentum tensor of a quantum scalar field theory in curved spacetime. Using analytical continuation of dimensionality of the phase space, we calculate the difference of vacuum-energy densities in the presence and absence of gravitational field. Using the dynamical equation of gravitational collapse, we compute the rate of vacuum state gaining gravitational energy. Computing the transition amplitude from initial vacuum state to final vacuum state in gravitational collapsing process, we show the rate and spectrum of spontaneous photon emissions for releasing gravitational energy. We compare our idea with the Schwinger idea for Sonoluminiescence and contrast our scenario with the Hawking effect.     

Vacuum polarization of scalar electrodynamics in flat space－time with nontrivial topology

The one-loop vacuum polarization is calculated for scalar electrodynamics in a flat space－time with the topology S¹×R³. The effect of vacuum polarization upon photon propagation is considered. It is found that photon propagation becomes anisotropic with some photon modes acquiring a positive topological mass and thus travelling at a subluminal speed.     

One loop vacuum polarization in a locally de Sitter background

We compute the one loop vacuum polarization from massless, minimally coupled scalar QED in a locally de Sitter background. Gauge invariance is maintained through the use of dimensional regularization, whereas conformal invariance is explicitly broken by the scalar kinetic term as well as through the conformal anomaly. A fully renormalized result is obtained. The one loop corrections to the linearized, effective field equations do not vanish when evaluated on-shell. In fact the on-shell one loop correction depends quadratically on the inflationary scale factor, similar to a photon mass. The contribution from the conformal anomaly is insignificant by comparison.     

Meson condensation and two photon emission in hadron capture by nuclei and heavy-ion collisions

New laboratory probes for the occurence of meson condensation in nuclei are proposed. They involve experiments which detect the simultaneous emission of two photons. Pion condensation stimulates a new mechanism for such emission which depends essentially upon the ratio of the condensate amplitude to the vacuum expectation value of the effective scalar meson field. We exhibit the special features of this mechanism for the photon energy spectrum and angular correlation, and compare with other mechanisms.     

Photon polarization operator in an external non-Abelian field

The contribution of massive spin-0, isospin-1/2 particles to the photon polarization operator in the background non-Abelian constant field is calculated. We have considered the spherically symmetric chromomagnetic field B _a ⁱ =λδ _a ⁱ . Such model vacuum is shown to be gyrotropic in spite of the fact that it is stable with respect to creation of pairs of real particles. At large Euclidean photon momentum the leading power term in the polarization operator is exactly determined by the value of scalar quark condensate. Its contribution to the scale-breaking correction to the deep inelastic scattering cross-section is also calculated in the paper. The gauge- and Lorentz-invariant averaging of the polarization operator over the ensemble of vacuum fields of various orientations is performed.     

Renormalization group equation for the vacuum energy of a scalar field in curved space-time

The renormalization group equation is formulated for the vacuum energy of a scalar field. We calculate the two-loop functions and study the asymptotic behavior of the vacuum energy.     

Point-like structure and off-shell dual strings

We argue that in a consistent off-shell dual formalism the amplitude for the emission of a scalar off-shell state by a string consists of two components. One of these contains the particle poles in the off-shell leg and the other is intimately related to the insertion of a point-like energy density on the string. As a result, the amplitude for a string to emit a zero momentum scalar state into the vacuum (which may be relevant for spontaneous symmetry breaking) is described by the amplitude for a finite fraction of the energy in the string to collapse to a spatial point at some time (this fraction and its space-time position being integrated over). The off-shell amplitudes have an elegant formulation in terms of a set of “confined modes” which can be assigned quark flavour quantum numbers to reproduce the Chan-Paton scheme.We suggest the dual model be modified by allowing for the coupling of scalar closed strings to the vacuum and the resulting effect on the space-time structure of dual Green functions is described.We find that even the emission of a single zero-momentum closed string modifies the elastic amplitude in a significant manner, leading to a power-behaved fixed-angle cross section in contrast to the usual exponential decrease of the dual model. This arises from point-like scattering between energy densities accumulating in the colliding strings. The relationship between the fixed angle and Regge limits is discussed. The fixed angle behaviour is found to be the asymptotic limit in momentum transfer of a fixed pole that arises in the Regge limit.     

Searching for minicharged particles via birefringence,dichroism and Raman spectroscopy of the vacuum polarized by a high-intensity laser wave

Absorption and dispersion of probe photons in the field of a high-intensity circularly polarized laser wave are investigated. The optical theorem is applied for determining the absorption coefficients in terms of the imaginary part of the vacuum polarization tensor. Compact expressions for the vacuum refraction indices and the photon absorption coefficients are obtained in various asymptotic regimes of interest. The outcomes of this analysis reveal that, far from the region relatively close to the threshold of the two-photon reaction, the birefringence and dichroism of the vacuum are small and, in some cases, strongly suppressed. On the contrary, in a vicinity of the region in which the photo-production of a pair occurs, these optical properties are manifest with lasers of moderate intensities. We take advantage of such a property in the search of minicharged particles by considering high-precision polarimetric experiments. In addition, Raman-like electromagnetic waves resulting from the inelastic part of the vacuum polarization tensor are suggested as an alternative form for finding exclusion limits on these hypothetical charge carriers. The envisaged parameters of upcoming high-intensity laser facilities are used for establishing upper bounds on the minicharged particles.     

Non perturbative calculation of the imaginary part of vacuum polarization

We derive a formula for the unitarity relation of the vacuum polarization which includes arbitrary number of soft photons in the vertex functions intermediate states. This quasi-elastic approximation has a spectral form, the soft photon contribution appearing as a broadened delta function. An interpolating formula for the vertices is given which incorporates the asymptotic behavior found by many authors.     

Inflation of small true vacuum bubble by quantization of Einstein-Hilbert action

We study the quantization of the Einstein-Hilbert action for a small true vacuum bubble without matter or scalar field. The quantization of action induces an extra term of potential called quantum potential in Hamilton-Jacobi equation, which gives expanding solutions, including the exponential expansion solutions of the scalar factor a for the bubble. We show that exponential expansion of the bubble continues with a short period, no matter whether the bubble is closed, flat, or open. The exponential expansion ends spontaneously when the bubble becomes large, that is, the scalar factor a of the bubble approaches a Planck length lp. We show that it is the quantum potential of the small true vacuum bubble that plays the role of the scalar field potential suggested in the slow-roll inflation model. With the picture of quantum tunneling, we calculate particle creation rate during inflation, which shows that particles created by inflation have the capability of reheating the universe.     

Polarized x-ray emission from magnetized neutron stars: signature of strong-field vacuum polarization

In the atmospheric plasma of a strongly magnetized neutron star, vacuum polarization can induce a Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein type resonance across which an x-ray photon may (depending on its energy) convert from one mode into the other, with significant changes in opacities and polarizations. We show that this vacuum resonance effect gives rise to a unique energy-dependent polarization signature in the surface emission from neutron stars. The detection of polarized x rays from neutron stars can provide a direct probe of strong-field quantum electrodynamics and constrain the neutron star magnetic field and geometry.     

Two-photon bremsstrahlung processes in atoms: Polarization effects and analytic results for the Coulomb potential

The partial wave analysis of two-photon free-free (bremsstrahlung) electron transition cross sections during scattering by a static potential U(r), as well as by an atom with a nonzero angular momentum, is carried out. The dipole interaction with radiation is taken into account in the second order of perturbation theory for the general case of elliptic polarization of photons. The polarization and angular dependences of the two-photon potential scattering amplitude is presented as a combination of the scalar product of electron momenta and photon polarization vectors and five atomic parameters containing Legendre polynomials of the scattering angle as well as radial matrix elements depending on the initial (E) and final (E′) electron energies. The results are applicable both for spontaneous double bremsstrahlung at nonrelativistic energies and for induced absorption and emission in the field of a light wave. Specific polarization effects (circular and elliptic dichroism) are analyzed for two-photon bremsstrahlung processes associated with the interference of the Hermite and anti-Hermite parts of the amplitude and depending on the sign of photon helicity. The limiting cases of high and low photon frequencies are investigated analytically, and the asymptotic forms of radial matrix elements and amplitudes for the general form of the U(r) potential are determined. Closed analytic expressions are derived for the radial matrix elements of the Coulomb potential in the form of integrals of hypergeometric function, and singularities are singled out in explicit form for E′ → E. The methods of approximate calculation of the radial matrix elements are discussed, and the results of their exact numerical calculation, as well as angular distributions and the cross sections of induced one-and two-photon emission and absorption, are given for the case of the Coulomb potential. The numerical results show that dichroism effects are quite accessible for experimental observations.     

Probing vacuum birefringence by phase-contrast Fourier imaging under fields of high-intensity lasers

In vacuum high-intensity lasers can cause photon–photon interaction via the process of virtual vacuum polarization which may be measured by the phase velocity shift of photons across intense fields. In the optical frequency domain, the photon–photon interaction is polarization-mediated described by the Euler–Heisenberg effective action. This theory predicts the vacuum birefringence or polarization dependence of the phase velocity shift arising from nonlinear properties in quantum electrodynamics (QED). We suggest a method to measure the vacuum birefringence under intense optical laser fields based on the absolute phase velocity shift by phase-contrast Fourier imaging. The method may serve for observing effects even beyond the QED vacuum polarization.     

Quantum state reduction and conditional time evolution of wave-particle correlations in cavity QED

We report measurements in cavity QED of a wave-particle correlation function which records the conditional time evolution of the field of a fraction of a photon. Detection of a photon prepares a state of well-defined phase that evolves back to equilibrium via a damped vacuum Rabi oscillation. We record the regression of the field amplitude. The recorded correlation function is nonclassical and provides an efficiency independent path to the spectrum of squeezing. Nonclassicality is observed even when the intensity fluctuations are classical.     

Anisotropic vacuum-induced interference in decay channels

We demonstrate how the anisotropy of the vacuum of the electromagnetic field can lead to quantum interferences among the decay channels of close lying states. Our key result is that interferences are given by the scalar formed from the antinormally ordered electric field correlation tensor for the anisotropic vacuum and the dipole matrix elements for the two transitions. We present results for emission between two conducting plates as well as for a two photon process involving fluorescence produced under coherent cw excitation.     

Singularities in Einstein–conformally coupled Higgs cosmological models

The dynamics of Einstein–conformally coupled Higgs field (EccH) system is investigated near the initial singularities in the presence of Friedman–Robertson–Walker symmetries. We solve the field equations asymptotically up to fourth order near the singularities analytically, and determine the solutions numerically as well. We found all the asymptotic, power series singular solutions, which are (1) solutions with a scalar polynomial curvature singularity but the Higgs field is bounded (‘Small Bang’), or (2) solutions with a Milne type singularity with bounded spacetime curvature and Higgs field, or (3) solutions with a scalar polynomial curvature singularity and diverging Higgs field (‘Big Bang’). Thus, in the present EccH model there is a new kind of physical spacetime singularity (‘Small Bang’). We also show that, in a neighbourhood of the singularity in these solutions, the Higgs sector does not have any symmetry breaking instantaneous vacuum state, and hence then the Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism does not work. The large scale behaviour of the solutions is investigated numerically as well. In particular, the numerical calculations indicate that there are singular solutions that cannot be approximated by power series.     

Reexamination of the power spectrum in de Sitter inflation

We find that the amplitude of quantum fluctuations of the invariant de Sitter vacuum coincides exactly with that of the vacuum of a comoving observer for a massless scalar (inflaton) field. We propose redefining the actual physical power spectrum as the difference between the amplitudes of the above vacua. An inertial particle detector continues to observe the Gibbons-Hawking temperature. However, although the resulting power spectrum is still scale-free, its amplitude can be drastically reduced since now, instead of the Hubble's scale at the inflationary period, it is determined by the square of the mass of the inflaton fluctuation field.