Explicit finite-time illustration of improper unitary evolution for the Klein--Gordon field in de Sitter space

TL;DR

This paper explicitly demonstrates that in de Sitter space, the vacuum states of a free scalar field at different times are unitarily inequivalent, highlighting fundamental issues in quantum field theory in curved spacetime.

Contribution

It provides a finite-time, explicit illustration of the failure of unitary evolution for the Klein-Gordon field in de Sitter space, including infinitesimal time steps.

Findings

Vacuum states at different times are unitarily inequivalent.

Inequivalence persists even for infinitesimally small time steps.

The issue is demonstrated through canonical quantisation in de Sitter space.

Abstract

It is known that quantum field theories in curved spacetime suffer from a number of pathologies, including the inability to relate states on different spatial slices by proper unitary time-evolution operators. In this article, we illustrate this issue by describing the canonical quantisation of a free scalar field in de Sitter space and explicitly demonstrating that the vacuum at a given time slice is unitarily inequivalent to that at any other time. In particular, we find that, if both background and Hamiltonian dynamics are taken into account, this inequivalence holds even for infinitesimally small time steps and not only in the asymptotic time limits.