7–12 Jul 2024
Aurum, the ‘Gabriele d’Annunzio’ University and ICRANet
Europe/Rome timezone

Non-minimal coupling, negative null energy, and effective field theory

8 Jul 2024, 15:00
40m
M4 ( Palazzo Micara of the ‘Gabriele d’Annunzio’ University)

M4

Palazzo Micara of the ‘Gabriele d’Annunzio’ University

Viale Pindaro, 42, Pescara
Invited talk in a parallel session Quantum field theory in curved spacetimes and perturbative quantum gravity Quantum field theory in curved spacetimes and perturbative quantum gravity

Speaker

Dr Eleni-Alexandra Kontou (King's College London)

Description

Even classical scalar fields, non-minimally coupled with the curvature, can violate energy conditions such as the null energy condition. In the context of quantum field theory, non-minimally coupled scalars can obey lower bounds, known as quantum energy inequalities, but these are always state dependent. In this talk I will discuss classical and quantum bounds on the null energy and consider possible violations. Further, I will examine the conformal transformation between Jordan and Einstein frames both classically and semiclassically. Finally, I will comment on extensions of this work and connections with self-interacting fields.

Primary author

Dr Eleni-Alexandra Kontou (King's College London)

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.