Local and Global Casimir Energies in a Green's Function Approach

Details Local and Global Casimir Energies in a Green's Function Approach Local and Global Casimir Energies in a Green's Function Approach

2006-12-29

arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0612299v1

Physics

High Energy Physics

High Energy Physics - Theory

19 pages, uses ws-procs975x65.cls, invited contribution to Proceedings of Marcel Grossmann 11

Scientific paper

The effects of quantum fluctuations in fields confined by background configurations may be simply and transparently computed using the Green's function approach pioneered by Schwinger. Not only can total energies and surface forces be computed in this way, but local energy densities, and in general, all components of the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor may be calculated. For simple geometries this approach may be carried out exactly, which yields insight into what happens in less tractable situations. In this talk I will concentrate on the example of a scalar field in a circular cylindrical delta-function background. This situation is quite similar to that of a spherical delta-function background. The local energy density in these cases diverges as the surface of the background is approached, but these divergences are integrable. The total energy is finite in strong coupling, but in weak coupling a divergence occurs in third order. This universal feature is shown to reflect a divergence in the energy associated with the surface, the integrated local energy density within the shell itself, which surface energy should be removable by a process of renormalization.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Local and Global Casimir Energies in a Green's Function Approach does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Local and Global Casimir Energies in a Green's Function Approach, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Local and Global Casimir Energies in a Green's Function Approach will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-380031