Real or Imaginary? (On pair creation in de Sitter space)

Abstract

Using properly defined Feynman propagator we obtain non--zero imaginary contribution to the scalar field effective action in even dimensional de Sitter space. Such a propagator follows from the path integral in de Sitter space and obeys composition principle proposed in arXiv:0709.2899. The obtained expression for the effective action shows particle production with the Gibbons--Hawking rate.