TY - JOUR
T1 - Microcausality in curved space-time
AU - Dubovsky, Sergei
AU - Nicolis, Alberto
AU - Trincherini, Enrico
AU - Villadoro, Giovanni
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2008/4/17
Y1 - 2008/4/17
N2 - It is well known that in Lorentz-invariant quantum field theories in flat space the commutator of spacelike separated local operators vanishes (microcausality). We provide two different arguments showing that this is a consequence of the causal structure of the classical theory, rather than of Lorentz invariance. In particular, microcausality holds in arbitrary curved space-times, where Lorentz invariance is explicitly broken by the background metric. As illustrated by an explicit calculation on a cylinder this property is rather nontrivial at the level of Feynman diagrams.
AB - It is well known that in Lorentz-invariant quantum field theories in flat space the commutator of spacelike separated local operators vanishes (microcausality). We provide two different arguments showing that this is a consequence of the causal structure of the classical theory, rather than of Lorentz invariance. In particular, microcausality holds in arbitrary curved space-times, where Lorentz invariance is explicitly broken by the background metric. As illustrated by an explicit calculation on a cylinder this property is rather nontrivial at the level of Feynman diagrams.
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U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.084016
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.084016
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:42449097163
SN - 1550-7998
VL - 77
JO - Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
JF - Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
IS - 8
M1 - 084016
ER -