Dirac vacuum: Acceleration and external field effects

1991
11 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 43 (1991) 3979-3989

Citations per year

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Abstract: (APS)
The quantization of the massive spin-½ field in Rindler coordinates is considered, including the effects of a background magnetic field. We calculate the expectation values of conserved quantities such as the stress-energy tensor, current density, and spin distribution, as detected by an accelerated observer. The ratio of the energy and particle densities is given by a Fermi-Dirac distribution, but the spectrum of these quantities takes in general a complicated form that cannot be simply interpreted as a thermal spectrum. For the free-particle case the spectrum of the energy-stress tensor has a Fermi-Dirac form only in the massless limit. In the presence of the magnetic field the Dirac vacuum is magnetized and exhibits plasmalike properties.
  • Dirac equation: solution
  • vacuum state
  • quantization
  • field theory: acceleration
  • tensor: energy-momentum
  • current: density
  • spin
  • magnetic field: external field