Unruh effect as a result of quantization of spacetime

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel approach to derive the Unruh effect using accelerated fields and quantum spacetime, suggesting the effect arises from quantum properties of spacetime rather than observer acceleration.

Contribution

It introduces accelerated fields as a new way to encode acceleration and demonstrates deriving the Unruh effect without changing the reference frame, linking it to quantum spacetime.

Findings

Unruh effect can be derived from quantum spacetime properties.

Accelerated fields provide an alternative framework to study acceleration effects.

Unruh effect may be evidence of quantum properties of spacetime.

Abstract

A way to encode acceleration directly into fields has recently being proposed, thus establishing a new kind of fields, the accelerated fields. The definition of accelerated fields points to the quantization of space and time, analogously to the way quantities like energy and momentum are quantized in usual quantum field theories. Unruh effect has been studied in connection with quantum field theory in curved spacetime and it is described by recruiting a uniformly accelerated observer. In this work, as a first attempt to demonstrate the utility of accelerated fields, we present an alternative way to derive Unruh effect. We show, by studying quantum field theory on quantum spacetime, that Unruh effect can be obtained without changing the reference frame. Thus, in the framework of accelerated fields, the observational confirmation of Unruh effect could be assigned to the existence of quantum properties of spacetime.