Published September 15, 2004 | Version v1
Journal article

Effects of stress tensor fluctuations upon focusing

  • 1. Institute of Cosmology, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 02155 (United States)

Description

We treat the gravitational effects of quantum stress tensor fluctuations. An operational approach is adopted in which these fluctuations produce fluctuations in the focusing of a bundle of geodesics. This can be calculated explicitly using the Raychaudhuri equation as a Langevin equation. The physical manifestation of these fluctuations are angular blurring and luminosity fluctuations of the images of distant sources. We give explicit results for the case of a scalar field on a flat background in a thermal state

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review. D, Particles Fields
Journal Volume
70
Journal Issue
6
Journal Page Range
p. 064032-064032.14
ISSN
0556-2821
CODEN
PRVDAQ

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2004 The American Physical Society