Thermal behavior induced by vacuum polarization on causal horizons in comparison with the standard heat bath formalism

Modular theory of operator algebras and the associated K MS property are used to obtain a unified description for the thermal aspects of the standard heat bath situation and those caused by quantum vacuum fluctuations from localization. An algebraic variant of light front holography reveals that the vacuum polarization on wedge horizons is compressed into the light ray direction. Their absence in the transverse direction is the prerequisite to an area (generalized Banknotes-) behavior of entropy-like measures which reveal the loss of purity due to restrictions to wedges and their horizons. Besides the well-known fact that localization-induced (generalized Hawking-) temperature is fixed by the geometric aspects, this area behavior (versus the standard volume dependence) constitutes the main difference between localization-caused and standard thermal behavior. (author)