Infrared behavior and gauge artifacts in de Sitter spacetime. I. The photon field

A. Youssef (1)

1 APC - THEORIE

We study the infrared (long distance) behavior of the free photon field in de Sitter spacetime. Using a two-parameter family of gauge fixing terms, we show that the infrared (IR) behavior of the two-point function is highly gauge-dependent and ranges from vanishing to growing. This situation is in disagreement with its counterpart in flat spacetime, where the two-point function vanishes in the IR for any choice of the gauge fixing parameters. A criterion to isolate the "physical'' part of the two-point function is given and is shown to lead to a well-behaved two-point function in the IR.

Mots clés: Quantum field theory in curved spacetime; de Sitter; Infrared effects

Domaines: Physique des Hautes Energies - Théorie [hep-th]; Relativité Générale et Cosmologie Quantique [gr-qc]

A. Youssef. Infrared behavior and gauge artifacts in de Sitter spacetime. I. The photon field. Physical Review Letters, 2011, 107 (2), pp.021101. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.021101⟩. ⟨hal-00534911⟩