Abstract. We study the solutions of the semiclassical Einstein equation in flat cosmological spacetimes driven by a massive conformally coupled scalar field. In particular, we show that it is possible to give initial conditions at finite time to get a state for the quantum field which gives finite expectation values for the stress-energy tensor. Furthermore, it is possible to control this expectation value by means of a global estimate on regular cosmological spacetimes. The obtained estimates permit to write a theorem about the existence and uniqueness of the local solutions encompassing both the spacetime metric and the matter field simultaneously. Finally, we show that one can always extend local solutions up to a point where the scale factor a becomes singular or the Hubble function H reaches a critical value H c = 180π/G, which both correspond to a divergence of the scalar curvature R, namely a spacetime singularity.

We develop a quantization scheme for the vector potential on globally hyperbolic spacetimes which realizes it as a locally covariant conformal quantum field theory. This result allows us to employ on a large class of backgrounds, which are asymptotically flat at null infinity, a bulk-to-boundary correspondence procedure in order to identify for the underlying field algebra a distinguished ground state which is of Hadamard form.

An axiomatic approach to electrodynamics reveals that Maxwell electrodynamics is just one instance of a variety of theories for which the name electrodynamics is justified. They all have in common that their fundamental input are Maxwell's equations dF ¼ 0 (or F ¼ dA) and dH ¼ J and a constitutive law H ¼ #F which relates the field strength two-form F and the excitation two-form H. A local and linear constitutive law defines what is called local and linear pre-metric electrodynamics whose best known application is the effective description of electrodynamics inside media including, e.g., birefringence. We analyze the classical theory of the electromagnetic potential A before we use methods familiar from mathematical quantum field theory in curved spacetimes to quantize it in a locally covariant way. Our analysis of the classical theory contains the derivation of retarded and advanced propagators, the analysis of the causal structure on the basis of the constitutive law (instead of a metric) and a discussion of the classical phase space. This classical analysis sets the stage for the construction of the quantum field algebra and quantum states. Here one sees, among other things, that a microlocal spectrum condition can be formulated in this more general setting.

Abstract. We consider the Klein-Gordon equation on a static spacetime and minimally coupled to a static electromagnetic potential. We show that it is essentially self-adjoint on C ∞ c . We discuss various distinguished inverses and bisolutions of the Klein-Gordon operator, focusing on the so-called Feynman propagator. We show that the Feynman propagator can be considered the boundary value of the resolvent of the Klein-Gordon operator, in the spirit of the limiting absorption principle known from the theory of Schrödinger operators. We also show that the Feynman propagator is the limit of the inverse of the Wick rotated Klein-Gordon operator.