https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-03822-8
Regular Article
Toward quantization of inhomogeneous field theory
1
Department of Physics, Institute of Basic Science, Sungkyunkwan University, 16419, Suwon, Korea
2
Center for Quantum Spacetime, Sogang University, 04107, Seoul, Republic of Korea
3
Department of Physics, Yonsei University, 03722, Seoul, Korea
Received:
17
November
2022
Accepted:
20
February
2023
Published online:
3
March
2023
We explore the quantization of a 
-dimensional inhomogeneous scalar field theory in which Poincaré symmetry is explicitly broken. We show the ‘classical equivalence’ between a scalar field theory on curved spacetime background and its corresponding inhomogeneous scalar field theory. This implies that a hidden connection may exist among some inhomogeneous field theories, which corresponds to general covariance in field theory on curved spacetime. Based on the classical equivalence, we propose how to quantize a specific field theory with broken Poincaré symmetry inspired by standard field theoretic approaches, canonical and algebraic methods, on curved spacetime. Consequently, we show that the Unruh effect can be realized in inhomogeneous field theory and propose that it may be tested by a condensed matter experiment. We suggest that an algebraic approach is appropriate for the quantization of a generic inhomogeneous field theory.
O-Kab Kwon, Jeongwon Ho, Sang-A Park and Sang-Heon Yi have contributed equally.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
