2000/04/03 by B. L. Hu, Nicholas. G. Phillips, Nicholas G. Phillip · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Massless particle #Minkowski space #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum field theory #Quantum field theory in curved spacetime #Quantum fluctuation #Quantum gravity #Scalar field #Semiclassical gravity #Semiclassical physics #Vacuum energy #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1023/a:1003689630751
published as Int.J.Theor.Phys.39:1817-1830,2000 · 18 pages, uses revtex. Invited Talk at the 4th Peyresq Meeting, June, 1999, France; To appear in Int. J. Theor. Phys. Vol 39 (2000)
arxiv created 2000/04/03 · openalex publication_date 2000/07/01 · arxiv updated 2014/11/17 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
From calculations of the variance of fluctuations and of the mean of the energy density of a massless scalar field in the Minkowski vacuum as a function of an intrinsic scale defined by the world function between two nearby points (as used in point separation regularization) we show that, contrary to prior claims, the ratio of variance to mean-squared being of the order unity does not imply a failure of semiclassical gravity. It is more a consequence of the quantum nature of the state of matter field than any inadequacy of the theory of spacetime with quantum matter as source.