The vacuum as a Lagrangian subspace

Abstract

We unify and generalize the notions of vacuum and amplitude in linear quantum field theory in curved spacetime. Crucially, the generalized notion admits a localization in spacetime regions and on hypersurfaces. The underlying concept is that of a Lagrangian subspace of the space of complexified germs of solutions of the equations of motion on hypersurfaces. Traditional vacua and traditional amplitudes correspond to the special cases of definite and real Lagrangian subspaces respectively. Further, we introduce both infinitesimal and asymptotic methods for vacuum selection that involve a localized version of Wick rotation. We provide examples from Klein-Gordon theory in settings involving different types of regions and hypersurfaces to showcase generalized vacua and the application of the proposed vacuum selection methods. A recurrent theme is the occurrence of mixed vacua, where propagating solutions yield definite Lagrangian subspaces and evanescent solutions yield real Lagrangian subspaces. The examples cover Minkowski space, Rindler space, Euclidean space and de Sitter space. A simple formula allows for the calculation of expectation values for observables in the generalized vacua.