# Unstable mode and the Unruh-DeWitt detector

## TL;DR

This paper studies the quantization of an unstable mode in a scalar field with boundary conditions, analyzing how an Unruh-DeWitt detector responds to such instability under various motions, revealing resonance and infrared effects.

## Contribution

It introduces a rigged Hilbert space approach to quantize unstable modes and explores their physical effects on detector responses in different trajectories.

## Key findings

- Detector response shows Breit-Wigner resonance with decay width.
- Infrared divergences occur in the Neumann limit for static observers.
- Acceleration acts as an infrared regulator, leading to finite oscillatory signals.

## Abstract

We investigate the quantization of a single unstable mode in a real scalar field subject to a Robin boundary condition in (1+1)-dimensional half-Minkowski spacetime. The instability arises from an imaginary frequency mode - analogous to that of the inverted harmonic oscillator - requiring the rigged Hilbert space formalism for consistent quantization. Within this framework, the unstable mode is naturally described as a well-defined decaying (or growing) quantum state with a characteristic mean lifetime. We investigate its physical consequences via the response of an Unruh-DeWitt detector along static, inertial, and uniformly accelerated trajectories. For static and inertial observers, the detector response exhibits a Breit-Wigner resonance profile, with a decay width determined by the unstable frequency and a Doppler factor. In the Neumann limit, infrared divergences emerge from arbitrarily low-frequency modes. Interestingly, for accelerated detectors, the response acquires a nontrivial dependence on acceleration, and the Neumann limit yields a finite, oscillatory signal rather than a divergence, suggesting that acceleration can act as an effective infrared regulator.