Unruh radiation: from black holes to elementary particles

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential impact of Unruh radiation on elementary particles, suggesting it could influence quark behavior within nucleons, despite being negligible in atomic systems.

Contribution

It extends the concept of Unruh radiation from black hole physics to elementary particles, analyzing its effects on quarks inside nucleons.

Findings

Unruh radiation is negligible in atomic systems.

Quarks inside nucleons may experience significant Unruh radiation.

Unruh effect could influence particle structure and dynamics.

Abstract

We advocate the idea that Unruh's quantum radiation, whose theoretical discovery was originally motivated by the physics of black holes, may have important implications on the structure and dynamics of elementary particles. To that end, we analyze the Unruh radiation effect experienced by an accelerated particle in atomic and nuclear systems. For atomic systems, the effect is negligible as compared to the characteristic energy of the system. On the other hand, it is found that a quark inside a nucleon may experience Unruh radiation whose energy is of the same order of magnitude as the quark's own mass.