Asymptotic states for stationary Unruh-DeWitt detectors

Abstract

We study the late-time asymptotic state of a stationary Unruh-DeWitt detector interacting with a field in a thermal state. We work in an open system framework, where the field plays the role of an environment for the detector. The long-time interaction between the detector and the field is modelled with the aid of a one-parameter family of switching functions that turn on and off the interaction Hamiltonian between the two subsystems, such that the long-time interaction limit is reached as the family parameter goes to infinity. In such limit, we show that if the field is in a Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) state and the detector is stationary with respect to the notion of positive frequency of the field, in the Born-Markov approximation, the asymptotic state of the detector is a Gibbs state at the KMS temperature. We then relax the KMS condition for the field state, and require only that a frequency-dependent version of the detailed balance condition for the Wightman function pulled back to the detector worldline hold, in the sense that the inverse temperature appearing in the detailed balance relation need not be constant. In this setting, we show that the late-time asymptotic state of the detector has the form of a thermal density matrix, but with a frequency-dependent temperature. We present examples of these results, which include the classical Unruh effect and idealised Hawking radiation (for fields in the HHI state), and also the study of the late-time behaviour of detectors following stationary "cusped" and circular motions in Minkowski space interacting with a massless Klein-Gordon field in the Minkowski vacuum. In the cusped motion case, a frequency-dependent, effective temperature for the asymptotic late-time detector state is obtained analytically. In the circular motion case, such effective temperature is obtained numerically.