Late-time quantum radiation by a uniformly accelerated detector in de Sitter spacetime

TL;DR

This paper explores how a uniformly accelerated detector in de Sitter spacetime emits persistent quantum radiation at late times, revealing the role of quantum entanglement and correlations in curved spacetime.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of late-time quantum radiation in de Sitter spacetime and links it to nonlocal quantum correlations similar to those in Minkowski spacetime.

Findings

Quantum radiation persists at late times behind the cosmological horizon.

Radiation originates from nonlocal correlations in the quantum field.

Entanglement between field modes explains the radiation mechanism.

Abstract

We investigate the quantum radiation emitted by a uniformly accelerated Unruh-DeWitt detector in de Sitter spacetime. We find that there exists a non-vanishing quantum radiation at late times in the radiation zone of the conformally flat coordinates, which cover the region behind the cosmological horizon for the accelerated detector. The theoretical structure of producing the late-time quantum radiation is similar to that of the same model in Minkowski spacetime: it comes from a nonlocal correlation of the quantum field in the Bunch-Davies vacuum state, which can be traced back to the entanglement between the field modes defined in different regions in de Sitter spacetime.