Worldline-induced transparency
We show that the Unruh response can be interferometrically suppressed or restored in a single Unruh-DeWitt detector whose center of mass is prepared in a coherent superposition of two uniformly accelerated worldlines. The two paths remain physically disjoint; the detector is read out in a basis so that no which-path information is revealed. If the detector’s energy gap is path dependent during the interaction, the branch amplitudes for first-order excitation become operationally indistinguishable and, therefore, add coherently. With appropriate tuning—matching the gap-to-acceleration ratios of the two branches and choosing a single relative phase—the conditional first-order excitation amplitude cancels, while reversing the phase restores the response. We derive these conditions in two complementary formalisms and interpret the mechanism as a relativistic analog of electromagnetically induced transparency, which we term . We also treat finite switching times explicitly and quantify how imperfect matching produces a residual signal, yielding a tolerance window rather than an idealized infinitely sharp condition.
Authors
- Anonymous
Institutions
- Mitchell Institute (US)
- Texas A&M University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
- Published
- 2026-01-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/f8sv-jytw
- Primary Topic
- Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00