Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime      

Quantum transport theory in curved spacetimes (using the covariant Wigner function formalism) was the topic of my Maryland Ph.D. thesis carried out under the benevolent supervision of Bei-lok Hu and which then led on to an invigorating post-doc with Bill Unruh at UBC. I am interested in the application of quantum field theory in curved spacetime to dynamical issues in cosmology such as the suppression/generation of the cosmological constant by semiclassical backreaction, density perturbations from inflation, the quantum-classical transition in the early universe, quantum transport theory in curved spacetime, and the application of ideas from statistical physics to cosmological models. My more recent work has been on the computation of the energy-momentum tensor in Robertson-Walker spaces with a view to application to the quantum back-reaction problem [with Paul Anderson (Wake Forest), Carmen Molina-Paris (Leeds), and Emil Mottola (T-8)]. I am interested in applying uniform approximation techniques [recently exploited with Andreas Heinen (Dortmund), Katrin Heitmann (ISR-1), Gerard Jungman (T-6), and Carmen Molina-Paris (Leeds)] to the quantum backreaction problem.

Papers

Links are to the Los Alamos eprint server:

  1. Inflationary Perturbations and Precision Cosmology, Salman Habib, Andreas Heinen, Katrin Heitmann, and Gerard Jungman, Phys. Rev. D 71, 043518 (2005) astro-ph/0501130
  2. Inverse-Scattering Theory and the Density Perturbations from Inflation, Salman Habib, Katrin Heitmann, and Gerard Jungman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 061303 (2005) astro-ph/0409599
  3. Characterizing Inflationary Perturbations: The Uniform Approximation, Salman Habib, Andreas Heinen, Katrin Heitmann, Gerard Jungman, and Carmen Molina-Paris, Phys. Rev. D 70, 083507 astro-ph/0406134
  4. The Inflationary Perturbation Spectrum, Salman Habib, Katrin Heitmann, Gerard Jungman, and Carmen Molina-Paris, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 281301 (2002) astro-ph/0208443
  5. Attractor States and Infrared Scaling in de Sitter Space, Paul R. Anderson, Wayne Eaker, Salman Habib, Carmen Molina-Paris, and Emil Mottola, Phys. Rev. D 62, 124019 (2000) gr-qc/0005102
  6. Energy-Momentum Tensor of Particles Created in an Expanding Universe, Salman Habib, Carmen Molina-Paris, and Emil Mottola, Phys. Rev. D 61, 024010 (1999) gr-qc/9906120
  7. Does Inflationary Particle Production suggest Omega_m < 1?, Varun Sahni and Salman Habib, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1766 (1998) hep-ph/9808204
  8. Multiplicative Noise: Applications in Cosmology and Field Theory, Salman Habib, Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 706 (1993) gr-qc/9308022
  9. Quantum Fluctuations with Strong Curvature Coupling, Redouane Fakir and Salman Habib, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 8, 2827 (1993)
  10. Stochastic Inflation: The Quantum Phase Space Approach, Salman Habib, Phys. Rev. D 46, 2408 (1992) gr-qc/9208006
  11. Stochastic Dynamics of Coarse-Grained Quantum Fields in the Inflationary Universe, Salman Habib and Milan Mijic, UBC Report (1991)
  12. Nonlinear Noise in Cosmology, Salman Habib and Henry E. Kandrup, Phys. Rev. D 46, 5303 (1992) gr-qc/9208005
  13. Wigner Functions and Density Matrices in Curved Spaces as Computational Tools, Salman Habib and Henry E. Kandrup, Ann. Phys. 191, 335 (1989)
  14. Exact Langevin Equation in a Cosmological Setting, Salman Habib and Henry E. Kandrup, Phys. Rev. D 39, 2871 (1989)
  15. Quantum Kinetic Field Theory in Curved Spacetime: Covariant Wigner Function and Liouville-Vlasov Equations, Esteban Calzetta, Salman Habib, and Bei-Lok Hu, Phys. Rev. D 37, 2901 (1988)
Related Links

T-Division Research Highlights for 2005: Inverse Scattering and Density Perturbations from Inflation [PDF].
T-Division Research Highlights for 2005: Precision Cosmology: Scalar and Tensor Perturbations from Inflation [PDF].

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Salman Habib / LANL / March 2005
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