Abstract:In quantum field theory on curved spacetime, and in locally-covariant quantum field theory, the Hadamard condition is often presented as a necessary condition on 'physically reasonable' states of the quantum field, and plays a central role in many theoretical and foundational applications - ranging from proofs of the renormalizability of Wick polynomials to derivations of the Hawking temperature. Yet despite this, the philosophical and foundational underpinnings of the Hadamard condition remain murky. I critically discuss existing motivations for the Hadamard condition in the literature, before arguing in favour of an alternative justification for the Hadamard condition, according to which it is best understood as a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a well-defined operator product on a sufficiently large space of observables of the quantum field, satisfying a variety of further conditions (thus proving a converse to a result which was already discussed in this context). This clarifies the role and status of the Hadamard condition, including its relationship to the equivalence principle, to well-definedness of physical quantities such as Wick polynomials and the expectation value of the stress-energy operator, and the sense in which Hadamard states are 'vacuum-like'.
From: Eleanor March [view email]
[v1]
Mon, 22 Jun 2026 02:13:41 UTC (33 KB)
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