Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Asymptotic Weyl symmetry and its anomaly in a curved spacetime

O-Kab Kwon1,*, Jeongwon Ho1,†, Sang-Heon Yi2,‡, and Sang-A Park1,§

  • *Contact author: okab@skku.edu
  • †Contact author: freejwho@gmail.com
  • ‡Contact author: shyi704@gmail.com
  • §Contact author: psang314@gmail.com

Phys. Rev. D 113, 086001 – Published 1 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/5tfl-l5wq

Abstract

We explore an unusual symmetry in a field theory on a specific (1+1)-dimensional curved spacetime, which has an interesting interpretation as an approximate asymptotic Weyl symmetry. Unlike the conventional Weyl symmetry, the boundary term under the variation plays a crucial role in understanding for its anomaly. After converting a two-dimensional field theory on curved spacetime to an inhomogeneous field theory, we obtain the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor. Then, we show the existence of an Unruh-like effect in the bubble wall expansion at the zero temperature.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (32)

  1. M. J. Duff, Twenty years of the Weyl anomaly, Classical Quantum Gravity 11, 1387 (1994).
  2. H. Bondi, M. G. J. van der Burg, and A. W. K. Metzner, Gravitational waves in general relativity. 7. Waves from axisymmetric isolated systems, Proc. R. Soc. A 269, 21 (1962).
  3. R. K. Sachs, Gravitational waves in general relativity. 8. Waves in asymptotically flat space-times, Proc. R. Soc. A 270, 103 (1962).
  4. A. Strominger, Lectures on the Infrared Structure of Gravity and Gauge Theory (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2018).
  5. J. D. Brown and M. Henneaux, Central charges in the canonical realization of asymptotic symmetries: An example from three-dimensional gravity, Commun. Math. Phys. 104, 207 (1986).
  6. J. Ho, O. K. Kwon, and S. H. Yi, Quantum inhomogeneous field theory: Unruh-like effects and bubble wall friction, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2025) 058.
  7. R. Ferrero, S. A. Franchino-Viñas, M. B. Fröb, and W. C. C. Lima, Universal definition of the nonconformal trace anomaly, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 071601 (2024).
  8. O. K. Kwon, J. Ho, S. A. Park, and S. H. Yi, Toward quantization of inhomogeneous field theory, Eur. Phys. J. Plus 138, 202 (2023).
  9. J. Ho, O. K. Kwon, S. A. Park, and S. H. Yi, Supersymmetric backgrounds in (1+1) dimensions and inhomogeneous field theory, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2023) 219.
  10. R. M. Wald, Quantum Field Theory in Curved Space-Time and Black Hole Thermodynamics (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995).
  11. T. Kubota, Green’s functions in the presence of a bubble wall, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2024) 290.
  12. T. Kubota, Gauge fields in the presence of the electroweak bubble wall, arXiv:2507.20134.
  13. Y. Decanini and A. Folacci, Hadamard renormalization of the stress-energy tensor for a quantized scalar field in a general spacetime of arbitrary dimension, Phys. Rev. D 78, 044025 (2008).
  14. V. Moretti, Comments on the stress energy tensor operator in curved space-time, Commun. Math. Phys. 232, 189 (2003).
  15. V. Moretti, On the global Hadamard parametrix in QFT and the signed squared geodesic distance defined in domains larger than convex normal neighbourhoods, Lett. Math. Phys. 111, 130 (2021).
  16. N. D. Birrell and P. C. W. Davies, Quantum Fields in Curved Space (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1982).
  17. S. R. Coleman, The fate of the false vacuum. 1. Semiclassical theory, Phys. Rev. D 15, 2929 (1977); 16, 1248(E) (1977).
  18. C. G. Callan, Jr. and S. R. Coleman, The fate of the false vacuum. 2. First quantum corrections, Phys. Rev. D 16, 1762 (1977).
  19. A. D. Linde, Decay of the false vacuum at finite temperature, Nucl. Phys. B216, 421 (1983); B223, 544(E) (1983).
  20. G. D. Moore and T. Prokopec, Bubble wall velocity in a first order electroweak phase transition, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 777 (1995).
  21. D. Bodeker and G. D. Moore, Electroweak bubble wall speed limit, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2017) 025.
  22. A. Azatov and M. Vanvlasselaer, Bubble wall velocity: Heavy physics effects, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2021) 058.
  23. R. Fan, Y. Gu, A. Vishwanath, and X. Wen, Emergent spatial structure and entanglement localization in Floquet conformal field theory, Phys. Rev. X 10, 031036 (2020).
  24. B. Lapierre, K. Choo, C. Tauber, A. Tiwari, T. Neupert, and R. Chitra, Emergent black hole dynamics in critical Floquet systems, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 023085 (2020).
  25. B. Lapierre, T. Numasawa, T. Neupert, and S. Ryu, Floquet engineered inhomogeneous quantum chaos in critical systems, Phys. Rev. B 112, 104317 (2025).
  26. J. Erdmenger, J. Kastikainen, and T. Schuhmann, Driven inhomogeneous CFT as a theory in curved space-time, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2026) 255.
  27. J. de Boer, V. Godet, J. Kastikainen, and E. Keski-Vakkuri, Quantum information geometry of driven CFTs, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2023) 087.
  28. B. Oblak, BMS particles in three dimensions, arXiv:1610.08526.
  29. E. Poisson, A. Pound, and I. Vega, The motion of point particles in curved spacetime, Living Rev. Relativity 14, 7 (2011).
  30. D. Siemssen, The semiclassical Einstein equation on cosmological spacetimes, arXiv:1503.01826.
  31. G. Festuccia and N. Seiberg, Rigid supersymmetric theories in curved superspace, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2011) 114.
  32. O. K. Kwon, C. Kim, and Y. Kim, Supersymmetric inhomogeneous field theories in 1+1 dimensions, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2022) 140.

Outline

Information

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation