Clifton, Rob and Halvorson, Hans (2000) Are Rindler Quanta Real? Inequivalent Particle Concepts in Quantum Field Theory. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Philosophical reflection on quantum field theory has tended to focus on how it revises our conception of what a particle is. However, there has been relatively little discussion of the threat to the "reality" of particles posed by the possibility of inequivalent quantizations of a classical field theory, i.e., inequivalent representations of the algebra of observables of the field in terms of operators on a Hilbert space. The threat is that each representation embodies its own distinctive conception of what a particle is, and how a "particle" will respond to a suitably operated detector. Our main goal is to clarify the subtle relationship between inequivalent representations of a field theory and their associated particle concepts. We also have a particular interest in the Minkowski versus Rindler quantizations of a free Boson field, because they respectively entail two radically different descriptions of the particle content of the field in the *very same* region of spacetime. We shall defend the idea that these representations provide *complementary descriptions* of the same state of the field against the claim that they embody completely *incommensurable theories* of the field.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | |||||||||
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| Keywords: | quanta, Minkowski, Rindler, Weyl Algebra, Canonical Commutation Relations, Complementarity, Incommensurability | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Physics > Fields and Particles Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics |
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| Depositing User: | Rob Clifton | |||||||||
| Date Deposited: | 08 Jan 2001 | |||||||||
| Last Modified: | 07 Oct 2010 15:09 | |||||||||
| Item ID: | 73 | |||||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Physics > Fields and Particles Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Field Theory Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Mechanics |
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| Date: | August 2000 | |||||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/73 |
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