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Article #4746Quantum Gravity 1
From: Jack Sarfatti
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 06:19
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 06:19
68 lines
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4996 bytes
Zeh continues p.123 "The existence of horizons is not bound to situations with singularities of the spacetime curvature. For example, there exists a future as well as a past horizon for a uniformly accelerated observer in flat Minkowski spacetime. His orbit is a hyperbola, and the asymptotes (caused by the relativistic limit to his velocity) represent horizons to him. ...There exists a whole ... ensemble ,,, of 'parallelly accelerated' local observers who share the same horizons. They possess different accelerations in their [common] co-moving rest frames ... such that they stay at fixed distances [from each other] in these [simultaneous] frames... a new [Rindler] space coordinate is defined as being constant along their orbits... and a new [Rindler] time coordinate [ the locally measurable constant acceleration a of the observer self-referentially measured by the observer in his co-moving frame is related to the Rindler space coordinate R by a = (2R^1/2)^-1. The common asymptotes (at +&- 45 degrees on spacetime diagram in the spacetime diagram of all of these non-inertial hyperbolic observers that measure fixed distances from each other, like the US Navy Blue Angels in a tight fixed formation,divide the flat Minkowski spacetime into 4 regions I, III on other side of I where observers are. The transformation between flat Minkowski coordinates and curved Rindler coordinates is via cosh and sinh so it is highly nonlinear - details don't matter here JS] ..the classical electromagnetic radiation of a uniformly accelerated point charge. The radiation propagating along the forward light cone of an event on the accelerated orbit will asymptotically completely intersect the future horizon, and therefore completely disappear from the point of view of each of the parallelly accelerated non-inertial observers [for which R = constant but a different value of R for each non-inertial observer who sees the charge at "rest" at fixed distance d from her- JS]... This illustrates why the accelerated charge may radiate for an inertial observer, but not for a parallelly accelerated one. ... Unruh (1976) has demonstrated, an accelerated counter in the vacuum of a quantum field must register isotropic thermal radiation corresponding to [T = ah/4pi^2ck , a = acceleration of counter, c = speed of light, h = Planck's constant, k = Boltzmann's constant - JS] ...According to the principle of equivalence [ accelerating counter equivalent to counter fixed in gravity field - locally JS] this is physically equivalent to the Hawking radiation. It can also be understood from the expansion of the Minkowski vacuum |Om> in the basis of 'particle' states defined by means of the Rindler coordinates: If the [Minkowski flat spacetime]plane waves.... are expressed by these nopn-Lorentzian [Rindler] coordinates, their corresponding creation and annihilation operators [second quantization in which the field modes of frequency f are formal quantum harmonic oscillators and 'particle number' n is level of excited state of energy E(n) = (n + 1/2)hf with 1/2hf the zero-point energy of the virtual particle of the vacuum mode n = 0 - JS] are given by the .. Bogoljubov transformation [well known to solid state theorists JS]...the non-linear transformation does not preserve the sign of the frequency [f Minkowski or w Rindler - Hawking shows that this permits faster-than-light or 'acausal propagation' in quantum gravity- JS] which distinguish particle and anti- particle modes. p.125 In terms of the [curved] Rindler particles, the [flat] Minkowski vacuum assumes the [well known to solid state theorists JS]. the [pair] correlated form of a BCS [Bardeen, Cooper, Schrieffer] state known from the theory of superconductivity [the pair correlated Rindler particles are far apart one in region I and the other in region III defined by the effective double light cone family of parallel future and past horizons of the parallelly accelerated Rindler observers at fixed distances from each other-JS]. The Rindler vacuum... is therfore (physically) different from the Minkowski vacuum. Since the Rindler modes are relevant for the accelerated counter, the concept of the vacuum (together with that of particles a global concept) is thus not invariant under non-Lorentzian transformations. It may be expected that this observer-relatedness of the operational meaning of a quantum state (in contrast to the invariance of the 'real' state itself!) is of more general importance , and not limited to a dependence on the observer's acceleration. p.125 Zeh The Direction of Time, Springer-Verlag 1992.
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Newsgroups: sci.physics Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!well!sarfatti From: sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti) Subject: Quantum Gravity 1 Message-ID: <Bvos8r.KD0@well.sf.ca.us> Sender: news@well.sf.ca.us Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 06:19:38 GMT Lines: 70