Quantum Stress Tensor Fluctuations and their Physical Effects

Details Quantum Stress Tensor Fluctuations and their Physical Effects Quantum Stress Tensor Fluctuations and their Physical Effects

2007-10-19

arxiv.org/abs/0710.3787v1

AIPConf.Proc.977:145-159,2008

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

15 pages, 1 figure; invited talk presented at the 3rd Mexican Meeting on Experimental and Theoretical Physics, Mexico City, Se

Scientific paper

10.1063/1.2902780

We summarize several aspects of recent work on quantum stress tensor fluctuations and their role in driving fluctuations of the gravitational field. The role of correlations and anticorrelations is emphasized. We begin with a review of the properties of the stress tensor correlation function. We next consider some illuminating examples of non-gravitational effects of stress tensors fluctuations, specifically fluctuations of the Casimir force and radiation pressure fluctuations. We next discuss passive fluctuations of spacetime geometry and some of their operational signatures. These include luminosity fluctuations, line broadening, and angular blurring of a source viewed through a fluctuating gravitational field. Finally, we discuss the possible role of quantum stress tensor fluctuations in the early universe, especially in inflation. The fluctuations of the expansion of a congruence of comoving geodesics grows during the inflationary era, due to non-cancellation of anticorrelations that would have occurred in flat spacetime. This results in subsequent non-Gaussian density perturbations and allows one to infer an upper bound on the duration of inflation. This bound is consistent with adequate inflation to solve the horizon and flatness problems.

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