Perturbative approaches to quantum field theory in curved space-time

TL;DR

This paper compares various perturbative methods for quantum field theory in curved space-times, highlighting their applications to particle scattering and particle generation in simplified models relevant to cosmology and black hole physics.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative analysis of different perturbative approaches in curved space-times, including new insights from the curved space LSZ formula.

Findings

Curved space LSZ formula provides new information over in-in formalism.

Different perturbative methods yield consistent results in 1+1 dimensional models.

Perturbative calculations are feasible with suitable approximations in curved backgrounds.

Abstract

Despite the large amount of work done in quantum field theory in curved space-times, there are not great many results available for perturbative calculations of particle processes in these systems. Such processes are expected to be important in the early stages of the universe, as well as near highly relativistic objects like black holes and, recently, in effective field theories of condensed matter systems. The difficulties with carrying out perturbative calculations in curved space-times are related to the practical difficulty of quantizing in curved space-times. This suggests the need for investigating new approximations and comparing the results of different methods of carrying out the calculations. In this paper, we compare different perturbative approaches to particle scattering problems and illustrate them with examples. In particular, we look at a 1+1 dimensional static spacetime. We also examine the spacetime particle generation in a 1+1 Robertson-Walker universe, where we find that the curved space LSZ formula yields new information compared to the in-in formalism.