The global rotating scalar field vacuum on anti-de Sitter space–time

• Main Authors: Carl Kent, Elizabeth Winstanley
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2015-01-01
• Series: Physics Letters B
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269314008491

We consider the definition of the global vacuum state of a quantum scalar field on n-dimensional anti-de Sitter space–time as seen by an observer rotating about the polar axis. Since positive (or negative) frequency scalar field modes must have positive (or negative) Klein–Gordon norm respectively, we find that the only sensible choice of positive frequency corresponds to positive frequency as seen by a static observer. This means that the global rotating vacuum is identical to the global nonrotating vacuum. For n≥4, if the angular velocity of the rotating observer is smaller than the inverse of the anti-de Sitter radius of curvature, then modes with positive Klein–Gordon norm also have positive frequency as seen by the rotating observer. We comment on the implications of this result for the construction of global rotating thermal states.