Estimates for modular theory in algebraic QFT

Abstract

The general scope of this PhD thesis is to establish relations between Tomita-Takesaki modular theory, in particular modular Hamiltonians and relative modular Hamiltonians, and physically better understood quantities, such as the stress-energy tensor, energy densities or other modular data in cases where it is known explicitly. In Chapter 1, we will present the basics of operators algebras, Tomita-Takesaki theory, symplectic spaces, and link these concepts to discuss quasi-equivalence of Gaussian states. In Chapter 2, we will discuss algebraic QFTs both in the framework of the Haag-Kastler axioms and of locally covariant QFT, to then specialize to scalar fields and present the stress-energy tensor and the Hadamard condition. In Chapter 3, focussing on Gaussian states of the Weyl-CCR algebra, we study relations between quasi-equivalence of their GNS-representations, differences of the total energy (on some Cauchy surface), and differences between functions of the modular Hamiltonians. Following qualitative relations by Araki and Yamagami, Verch and Longo, we investigate quantitative relations, including in particular estimates of differences between functions of modular Hamiltonians in terms of energy differences. These results will make use of inequalities between p-norms of operators, which we will discuss in Appendix C. In Chapter 4, generalizing the picture beyond Gaussian states, we exploit locality properties of general algebraic QFTs to construct a scheme that allows to estimate relative modular Hamiltonians for suitable pairs of states on some local algebra in terms of modular Hamiltonians of a reference state on bigger or smaller algebras, which might be better understood. For pairs of states susceptible to this scheme, there exist unitaries linking them to the reference state which do not enable superluminal signalling in the sense of Sorkin's paradox. Such unitaries may not however compose the whole class of non-signalling operators, raising the question whether the existence of a non-signalling unitary is a sufficient condition to show the applicability of our estimate. To investigate the strength of our estimates we then consider coherent states for CCR systems, focussing particularly on free scalar fields, where the difference between the upper and lower bounds can be made arbitrarily small, recovering an exact result by squeezing. This yields an independent proof for the relative entropy formula in cases where the relative modular Hamiltonian has not been computed exactly and corroborates the strength of our general estimates. For these results, we will make use of several commutation properties of operators on Fock spaces, which we will present in Appendix A. Results about operator monotone functions will be used throughout this thesis and are explained in Appendix B.