Vacuum Radiation in Conformally Invariant Quantum Field Theory

TL;DR

This paper investigates vacuum radiation caused by special conformal transformations in conformally invariant quantum field theories, revealing a generalized Planckian spectrum analogous to the Unruh effect.

Contribution

It provides an exact calculation of the outgoing particle spectrum resulting from SCT-induced vacuum radiation in conformal quantum field theories.

Findings

The spectrum of emitted particles generalizes the Planckian distribution.

Special conformal transformations induce vacuum radiation similar to the Unruh effect.

Exact analytical results for the radiation spectrum are obtained.

Abstract

Although the whole conformal group $SO(4,2)$ can be considered as a symmetry in a classical massless field theory, the subgroup of special conformal transformations (SCT), usually related to transitions to uniformly accelerated frames, causes vacuum radiation in the corresponding quantum field theory, in analogy to the Fulling-Unruh effect. The spectrum of the outgoing particles can be calculated exactly and proves to be a generalization of the Planckian one.