Particle detectors, geodesic motion, and the equivalence principle

Details Particle detectors, geodesic motion, and the equivalence principle Particle detectors, geodesic motion, and the equivalence principle

2003-07-09

arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0307040v2

Class.Quant.Grav.21:433-444,2004

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

14 pages. Revised version, with corrections; added two references. Accepted for publication in Class. Quantum Grav

Scientific paper

10.1088/0264-9381/21/2/008

It is shown that quantum particle detectors are not reliable probes of spacetime structure. In particular, they fail to distinguish between inertial and non-inertial motion in a general spacetime. To prove this, we consider detectors undergoing circular motion in an arbitrary static spherically symmetric spacetime, and give a necessary and sufficient condition for the response function to vanish when the field is in the static vacuum state. By examining two particular cases, we show that there is no relation, in general, between the vanishing of the response function and the fact that the detector motion is, or is not, geodesic. In static asymptotically flat spacetimes, however, all rotating detectors are excited in the static vacuum. Thus, in this particular case the static vacuum appears to be associated with a non-rotating frame. The implications of these results for the equivalence principle are considered. In particular, we discuss how to properly formulate the principle for particle detectors, and show that it is satisfied.

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