Metric emerging to massive modes in quantum cosmological space-times

Abstract

We consider a massive quantum test Klein-Gordon field probing a homogeneous isotropic quantum cosmological space-time in the background. In particular, we derive a semiclassical space-time which emerges to a mode of the field. The method consists of a comparison between quantum field theory on a quantum background and quantum field theory on a classical curved space-time, giving rise to an emergent metric tensor (its components being computed from the equation of propagation of the quantum Klein-Gordon field in the test field approximation). If the field is massless the emergent metric is of the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker form, but if a mass term is considered it turns out that the simplest emergent metric that displays the symmetries of the system is of the Bianchi I type, deformed in the direction of propagation of the particle. This anisotropy is of a quantum nature: it is proportional to $\ensuremath{\hbar}$ and ``dresses'' the isotropic classical space-time obtained in the classical limit.