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Agullo, I., Bonga, B., Ribes-Metidieri, P., Kranas, D., & Nadal-Gisbert, S. (2023). How ubiquitous is entanglement in quantum field theory? Phys. Rev. D, 108(8), 085005–25pp.
Abstract: It is well known that entanglement is widespread in quantum field theory, in the following sense: every Reeh-Schlieder state contains entanglement between any two spatially separated regions. This applies, in particular, to the vacuum of a noninteracting scalar theory in Minkowski spacetime. Discussions on entanglement in field theory have focused mainly on subsystems containing infinitely many degrees of freedom-typically, the field modes that are supported within a compact region of space. In this article, we study entanglement in subsystems made of finitely many field degrees of freedom, in a free scalar theory in D + 1-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. The focus on finitely many modes of the field is motivated by the finite capabilities of real experiments. We find that entanglement between finite-dimensional subsystems is not common at all, and that one needs to carefully select the support of modes for entanglement to show up. We also find that entanglement is increasingly sparser in higher dimensions. We conclude that entanglement in Minkowski spacetime is significantly less ubiquitous than normally thought.
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Agullo, I., del Rio, A., & Navarro-Salas, J. (2018). On the Electric-Magnetic Duality Symmetry: Quantum Anomaly, Optical Helicity, and Particle Creation. Symmetry-Basel, 10(12), 763–14pp.
Abstract: It is well known that not every symmetry of a classical field theory is also a symmetry of its quantum version. When this occurs, we speak of quantum anomalies. The existence of anomalies imply that some classical Noether charges are no longer conserved in the quantum theory. In this paper, we discuss a new example for quantum electromagnetic fields propagating in the presence of gravity. We argue that the symmetry under electric-magnetic duality rotations of the source-free Maxwell action is anomalous in curved spacetimes. The classical Noether charge associated with these transformations accounts for the net circular polarization or the optical helicity of the electromagnetic field. Therefore, our results describe the way the spacetime curvature changes the helicity of photons and opens the possibility of extracting information from strong gravitational fields through the observation of the polarization of photons. We also argue that the physical consequences of this anomaly can be understood in terms of the asymmetric quantum creation of photons by the gravitational field.
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Agullo, I., Navarro-Salas, J., & Parker, L. (2012). Enhanced local-type inflationary trispectrum from a non-vacuum initial state. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 019–13pp.
Abstract: We compute the primordial trispectrum for curvature perturbations produced during cosmic inflation in models with standard kinetic terms, when the initial quantum state is not necessarily the vacuum state. The presence of initial perturbations enhances the trispectrum amplitude for configuration in which one of the momenta, say k(3), is much smaller than the others, k(3) << k(1,2,4). For those squeezed con figurations the trispectrum acquires the so-called local form, with a scale dependent amplitude that can get values of order epsilon(k(1)/k(3))(2). This amplitude could be larger than the prediction of the so-called Maldacena consistency relation by a factor as large as 10(6), and could reach the sensitivity of forthcoming observations, even for single-field inflationary models.
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Agullo, I., del Rio, A., & Navarro-Salas, J. (2017). Gravity and handedness of photons. Int. J. Mod. Phys. D, 26(12), 1742001–5pp.
Abstract: Vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields are altered in the presence of a strong gravitational background, with important physical consequences. We argue that a nontrivial spacetime geometry can act as an optically active medium for quantum electromagnetic radiation, in such a way that the state of polarization of radiation changes in time, even in the absence of electromagnetic sources. This is a quantum effect, and is a consequence of an anomaly related to the classical invariance under electric-magnetic duality rotations in Maxwell theory.
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