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| Author(s): |
Caio Cesar Holanda Ribeiro
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Carlos. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC/BT) |
| Defense date: | 2020-04-28 |
| Examining board members: |
Daniel Augusto Turolla Vanzela;
Diogo Rodrigues Boito;
Andre Gustavo Scagliusi Landulfo;
Eduardo Miranda;
Alberto Vazquez Saa
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| Advisor: | Daniel Augusto Turolla Vanzela |
| Abstract | |
This is a work about the quantum vacuum. Particularly, unstable vacuum states. These are modified (with respect to Minkowski) vacuum states in which the vacuum polarization effects are so extreme that they eventually dominate the system evolution — a mechanism called vacuum awakening in the gravitational scenario. In this doctoral thesis, we are interested in studying further this phenomenon. We shall focus on interactions between fields and matter that can trigger this sort of instability in two different contexts: analogue models for the vacuum awakening and quantum aspects of active dispersive media. In the former, we shall see that the electromagnetic field in the presence of anisotropic materials behaves as if it were nonminimally coupled to gravity, and we use this analogy to study a couple of scenarios where instability takes place. As for the latter, we shall establish a Lagrangian microscopic model for the interaction between field and matter that gives rise to an effective tachyonic mass, and motivated by this model, we shall quantize the electromagnetic field in the presence of bilayer systems that can sustain instability. Our findings include the appearance of long-range correlations and a new kind of quantum levitation. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 15/26438-8 - Instability of fermionic, vectorial, and tensorial fields in curved spacetimes |
| Grantee: | Caio Cesar Holanda Ribeiro |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate |