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Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3869-2850

AccessType

Open Access Dissertation

Document Type

dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Program

Physics

Year Degree Awarded

2022

Month Degree Awarded

September

First Advisor

Jennie Traschen

Second Advisor

Lorenzo Sorbo

Subject Categories

Elementary Particles and Fields and String Theory

Abstract

Production of particles from nontrivial backgrounds is an important phenomenon in quantum field theory. In this thesis, we review some useful formulae of Bogoliubov formalism and explain how to derive the spectra of particle production. We then apply the formalism to study several scenarios. We first study the Schwinger effect in compact $(1+1)$ dimensions spacetime. Using the in-in formalism, we compute the correction to the electric field from the creation of charged particles both when the spatial dimension is compact and when it is non-compact. Secondly, we investigate the thermodynamic properties of the Schwarzschild-de Sitter (SdS) system. We explore particle production in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime and obtain the spectrum of created particles. We find that for the small black hole limit, our calculation matches the standard Schwarzschild black hole case computed by Hawking, and the production rate goes to zero in the maximal mass limit. A related project investigating the Schottky anomaly in Schwarzschild-de Sitter system, that is, ways in which SdS thermodynamics resembles that of a 2-state statistical system. We show that the Schottky anomaly persists in the presence of particle production. Lastly, we compute the power spectrum of tensor fluctuations accounting for gravitational waves generated by the thermal bath. We find that in some parameter regimes the sourced component exceeds the standard vacuum contribution.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/30801288

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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