2018/05/10 by Luca V. Delacrétaz, Thomas Hartman, Sean A. Hartnoll +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Degrees of freedom (physics and chemistry) #Eigenvalues and eigenvectors #Energy condition #High-Energy Particle Collisions Research #Null (SQL) #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Thermal #Thermalisation #Viscosity #cond-mat.str-el #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep10(2018)028
28 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2018/05/10 · openalex created_date 2018/05/17 · openalex publication_date 2018/10/01 · arxiv updated 2018/11/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A bstract We explore the implications of the averaged null energy condition for thermal states of relativistic quantum field theories. A key property of such thermal states is the thermalization length. This lengthscale generalizes the notion of a mean free path beyond weak coupling, and allows finite size regions to independently thermalize. Using the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, we show that thermal fluctuations in finite size ‘fireballs’ can produce states that violate the averaged null energy condition if the thermalization length is too short or if the shear viscosity is too large. These bounds become very weak with a large number N of degrees of freedom but can constrain real-world systems, such as the quark-gluon plasma.