Quantum imprints of gravitational shockwaves

A bstract Gravitational shockwaves are simple exact solutions of Einstein equations representing the fields of ultrarelativistic sources and idealized gravitational waves (shocks). Historically, much work has focused on shockwaves in the context of possible black hole formation in high energy partic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The journal of high energy physics 2021-11, Vol.2021 (11), p.1-32, Article 54
Main Authors: Gray, Finnian, Kubizňák, David, May, Taillte, Timmerman, Sydney, Tjoa, Erickson
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Black holes
Classical and Quantum Gravitation
Classical Theories of Gravity
Einstein equations
Elementary Particles
Exact solutions
Gauge Symmetry
Gravitational waves
High energy physics
Particle collisions
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Quantum Field Theories
Quantum Field Theory
Quantum Physics
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Relativity
Relativity Theory
Shock waves
Space-Time Symmetries
Spacetime
String Theory
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A bstract Gravitational shockwaves are simple exact solutions of Einstein equations representing the fields of ultrarelativistic sources and idealized gravitational waves (shocks). Historically, much work has focused on shockwaves in the context of possible black hole formation in high energy particle collisions, yet they remain at the forefront of research even today. Representing hard modes in the bulk, shocks give rise to the gravitational memory effect at the classical level and implant supertranslation (BMS) hair onto a classical spacetime at the quantum level. The aim of this paper is to further our understanding of the ‘information content’ of such supertranslations. Namely, we show that, contrary to the several claims in the literature, a gravitational shockwave does leave a quantum imprint on the vacuum state of a test quantum field and that this imprint is accessible to local observers carrying Unruh-DeWitt (UDW) detectors in this spacetime.
ISSN:1029-8479
1029-8479
DOI:10.1007/JHEP11(2021)054