Holographic Theory of Accelerated Observers, the S-matrix, and the Emergence of Effective Field Theory

Understand

We present a theory of accelerated observers in the formalism of holographic space time, and show how to define the analog of the Unruh effect for a one parameter set of accelerated observers in a causal diamond in Minkowski space.

• The key fact is that the formalism splits the degrees of freedom in a large causal diamond into particles and excitations on the horizon.
• The latter form a large heat bath for the particles, and different Hamiltonians, describing a one parameter family of accelerated trajectories, have different couplings to the bath.
• We argue that for a large but finite causal diamond the Hamiltonian describing a geodesic observer has a residual coupling to the bath and that the effect of the bath is finite over the long time interval in the diamond.