Common vacuum conservation amplitude in the theory of the radiation of mirrors in two-dimensional space-time and of charges in four-dimensional space-time

TL;DR

This paper investigates the vacuum conservation amplitudes for accelerated mirrors and charges, revealing a deep connection between their actions in different space-time dimensions and the role of causality in their propagation functions.

Contribution

It establishes a quantitative link between vacuum amplitudes in 1+1 and 3+1 space-times and explains the causality-driven relation between real and imaginary parts of the action change.

Findings

Vacuum amplitudes for mirrors and charges are proportional with a factor e^2.

Propagation of virtual pairs in 1+1 space can be described by a 3+1 space Green's function.

Real and imaginary parts of the action change are connected via dispersion relations.

Abstract

The action changes (and thus the vacuum conservation amplitudes) in the proper-time representation are found for an accelerated mirror interacting with scalar and spinor vacuum fields in 1+1 space. They are shown to coincide to within the multiplier e^2 with the action changes of electric and scalar charges accelerated in 3+1 space. This coincidence is attributed to the fact that the Bose and Fermi pairs emitted by a mirror have the same spins 1 and 0 as do the photons and scalar quanta emitted by charges. It is shown that the propagation of virtual pairs in 1+1 space can be described by the causal Green's function \Delta_f(z,\mu) of the wave equation for 3+1 space. This is because the pairs can have any positive mass and their propagation function is represented by an integral of the causal propagation function of a massive particle in 1+1 space over mass which coincides with \Delta_f(z,\mu). In this integral the lower limit \mu is chosen small, but nonzero, to eliminate the infrared divergence. It is shown that the real and imaginary parts of the action change are related by dispersion relations, in which a mass parameter serves as the dispersion variable. They are a consequence of the same relations for \Delta_f(z,\mu). Therefore, the appearance of the real part of the action change is a direct consequence of the causality, according to which real part of \Delta_f(z,\mu) is nonzero only for timelike and zero intervals.