Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: In quantum field theory, the vacuum is popularly considered to be a complex medium populated with virtual particle + antiparticle pairs. To an observer experiencing uniform acceleration, it is generally held that these virtual particles become real, appearing as a gas at a temperature that grows with the acceleration. This is the Unruh effect. However, it has been shown that vacuum complexity is an artifact produced by treating quantum field theory in a manner that does not manifestly enforce causality. Choosing a quantization approach that patently enforces causality, the quantum field theory vacuum is barren, bereft even of virtual particles. We show that acceleration has no effect on a trivial vacuum; hence, there is no Unruh effect in such a treatment of quantum field theory. Since the standard calculations suggesting an Unruh effect are formally consistent, insofar as they have been completed, there must be a canceling contribution that is omitted in the usual analyses. We argue that it is the dynamical action of conventional Lorentz transformations on the structure of an Unruh detector.
Source: Particles
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $1,930
Awards: G1105326016, G1229526393, G1728142190, G1848180026, G2188849882, G2263355576, G2371548206, G2702141073, G2988778103, G303061748, G4411335388, G4654690619, G495301720, G498139845, G5570207115, CAREER: Computing Radiation Spectra in Compton Sources with High Precision, G6427981414, G6674091005, G7705497243, G8382000481, G8939852231, G969889393
OpenAlex ID: W4396881584