Quantum detection of boundary conditions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: da Silva, Jefferson Monção, Pitelli, João Paulo M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author da Silva, Jefferson Monção
Pitelli, João Paulo M.
author_facet da Silva, Jefferson Monção
Pitelli, João Paulo M.
contents The quantum detection of spacetime conicity was investigated in reference [Phys. Lett. B 820, 136482 (2021)] through the analysis of the response function of an Unruh-deWitt detector coupled to a massless scalar field. In particular, it was shown that the detector can discern the presence of the deficit angle of a region of spacetime even when it is placed on a flat region with no conical deficit and (due to the rapid switching on and off) is classically isolated from the conical region. The scalar field was supposed to be continuous at the three dimensional timelike hypersurface connecting both regions and it was argued that the non-trivial effects on the response function were only due to the deficit angle of the outer conical region. In this paper, we study the response function of the Unruh-deWitt detector on the same classical framework, but exploring the effects of the choice of boundary conditions for the scalar field at the connecting hypersurface. These boundary conditions are extracted from the two-interval Sturm-Liouville theory and each one gives rise to a physically inequivalent sensible dynamics for the quantum field. We show that they play an important role on the response function of the detector, which effectively ``feels'' the combined effect of conicity + boundary condition.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_13931
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantum detection of boundary conditions
da Silva, Jefferson Monção
Pitelli, João Paulo M.
High Energy Physics - Theory
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
The quantum detection of spacetime conicity was investigated in reference [Phys. Lett. B 820, 136482 (2021)] through the analysis of the response function of an Unruh-deWitt detector coupled to a massless scalar field. In particular, it was shown that the detector can discern the presence of the deficit angle of a region of spacetime even when it is placed on a flat region with no conical deficit and (due to the rapid switching on and off) is classically isolated from the conical region. The scalar field was supposed to be continuous at the three dimensional timelike hypersurface connecting both regions and it was argued that the non-trivial effects on the response function were only due to the deficit angle of the outer conical region. In this paper, we study the response function of the Unruh-deWitt detector on the same classical framework, but exploring the effects of the choice of boundary conditions for the scalar field at the connecting hypersurface. These boundary conditions are extracted from the two-interval Sturm-Liouville theory and each one gives rise to a physically inequivalent sensible dynamics for the quantum field. We show that they play an important role on the response function of the detector, which effectively ``feels'' the combined effect of conicity + boundary condition.
title Quantum detection of boundary conditions
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13931