• DOI:10.1088/0264-9381/24/7/F01
• Corpus ID: 1870101

Local temperature in curved spacetime

@article{Buchholz2006LocalTI,
  title={Local temperature in curved spacetime},
  author={Detlev Buchholz and Jan Schlemmer},
  journal={Classical and Quantum Gravity},
  year={2006},
  volume={24},
  pages={F25 - F31}
}

• D. Buchholz, Jan Schlemmer
• Published 30 August 2006
• Physics
• Classical and Quantum Gravity

A physically meaningful local concept of temperature is introduced in quantum field theory on curved spacetime and applied to the example of a massless field on de Sitter space. It turns out in this model that the equilibrium (Gibbs) states which can be prepared by a geodesic observer have in general a varying temperature distribution in the neighbourhood of the geodesic and may not even allow for a consistent thermal interpretation close to the horizon. This result, which can be traced back to the Unruh effect, illustrates the failure of a global notion of temperature in curved spacetime and reveals the need for a local concept, as presented here.