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States that describe thermodynamic equilibrium in the thermodynamic limit of infinite volume cannot be described by density matrices in vacuum Fock space because of their everywhere finite energy density. In the framework of algebraic quantum field theory on Minkowski spacetime, such states can be readily described as expectation functionals with certain analyticity properties. In curved spacetimes, a globally defined temperature cannot generally be expected to exist, if the metric is not static. Therefore the description of thermal states is more difficult in this case. This talk explores the proposed concept of local thermal equilibrium states and discusses problems that arise even for the free scalar field in simple spacetime models.

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Benjamin Eltzner, Universität Leipzig
Seminarraum Theoretische Physik
Contact: not specified