Causal field theory with an infinite speed of sound

N Afshordi, DJH Chung, G Geshnizjani - Physical Review D—Particles, Fields …, 2007 - APS
Physical Review D—Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology, 2007APS
We introduce a model of scalar field dark energy, Cuscuton, which can be realized as the
incompressible (or infinite speed of sound) limit of a scalar field theory with a noncanonical
kinetic term (or k-essence). Even though perturbations of Cuscuton propagate
superluminally, we show that they have a locally degenerate phase space volume (or zero
entropy), implying that they cannot carry any microscopic information, and thus the theory is
causal. Even coupling to ordinary scalar fields cannot lead to superluminal signal …
We introduce a model of scalar field dark energy, Cuscuton, which can be realized as the incompressible (or infinite speed of sound) limit of a scalar field theory with a noncanonical kinetic term (or -essence). Even though perturbations of Cuscuton propagate superluminally, we show that they have a locally degenerate phase space volume (or zero entropy), implying that they cannot carry any microscopic information, and thus the theory is causal. Even coupling to ordinary scalar fields cannot lead to superluminal signal propagation. Furthermore, we show that the family of constant field hypersurfaces is the family of constant mean curvature hypersurfaces, which are the analogs of soap films (or soap bubbles) in Euclidian space. This enables us to find the most general solution in dimensions, whose properties motivate conjectures for global degeneracy of the phase space in higher dimensions. Finally, we show that the Cuscuton action can model the continuum limit of the evolution of a field with discrete degrees of freedom and argue why it is protected against quantum corrections at low energies. While this paper mainly focuses on interesting features of Cuscuton in a Minkowski space-time, a companion paper examines cosmology with Cuscuton dark energy.
American Physical Society
以上显示的是最相近的搜索结果。 查看全部搜索结果