Local thermal equilibrium and KMS states in curved spacetime

Abstract

On the example of a free massless and conformally coupled scalar field, it is argued that in quantum field theory in curved spacetimes with the time-like Killing field, the corresponding KMS states (generalized Gibbs ensembles) at parameter β > 0 need not possess a definite temperature in the sense of the zeroth law. In fact, these states, although passive in the sense of the second law, are not always in local thermal equilibrium (LTE). A criterion characterizing LTE states with sharp local temperature is discussed. Moreover, a proposal is made for fixing the renormalization freedom of composite fields which serve as ‘thermal observables’ and a new definition of the thermal energy of LTE states is introduced. Based on these results, a general relation between the local temperature and the parameter β is established for KMS states in (anti) de Sitter spacetime.