On scalar radiation

Abstract

We discuss radiation in theories with scalar fields. Our key observation is that even in flat spacetime, the radiative fields depend qualitatively on the coupling of the scalar field to the Ricci scalar: for non-minimally coupled scalars, the radiative energy density is not positive definite, the radiated power is not Lorentz invariant and it depends on the derivative of the acceleration. We explore implications of this observation for radiation in conformal field theories. First, we find a relation between two coefficients that characterize radiation, that holds in all the conformal field theories we consider. Furthermore, we find evidence that for a 1/2-BPS probe coupled to N = 4 super Yang-Mills, and following an arbitrary trajectory, the spacetime dependence of the one-point function of the energy momentum tensor is independent of the Yang-Mills coupling.