Violating the Quantum Focusing Conjecture and Quantum Covariant Entropy Bound in \(d\ge 5\) dimensions

We study the Quantum Focussing Conjecture (QFC) in curved spacetime. Noting that quantum corrections from integrating out massive fields generally induce a Gauss-Bonnet term, we study Einstein-Hilbert-Gauss-Bonnet gravity and show for \(d\ge 5\) spacetime dimensions that weakly-curved solutions can...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2017-05
Main Authors: Fu, Zicao, Koeller, Jason, Marolf, Donald
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coupling
Curvature
Entropy
Gravitation
Relativity
Spacetime
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We study the Quantum Focussing Conjecture (QFC) in curved spacetime. Noting that quantum corrections from integrating out massive fields generally induce a Gauss-Bonnet term, we study Einstein-Hilbert-Gauss-Bonnet gravity and show for \(d\ge 5\) spacetime dimensions that weakly-curved solutions can violate the associated QFC for either sign of the Gauss-Bonnet coupling. The nature of the violation shows that -- so long as the Gauss-Bonnet coupling is non-zero -- it will continue to arise for local effective actions containing arbitrary further higher curvature terms, and when gravity is coupled to generic \(d\ge 5\) theories of massive quantum fields. The argument also implies violations of a recently-conjectured form of the generalized covariant entropy bound. The possible validity of the QFC and covariant entropy bound in \(d\le 4\) spacetime dimensions remains open.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1705.03161