De Sitter Waves and the Zero Curvature Limit

Abstract

We show that a particular set of global modes for the massive de Sitter scalar field (the de Sitter waves) allows to manage the group representations and the Fourier transform in the flat (Minkowskian) limit. This is in opposition to the usual acceptance based on a previous result, suggesting the appearance of negative energy in the limit process. This method also confirms that the Euclidean vacuum, in de Sitter spacetime, has to be preferred as far as one wishes to recover ordinary QFT in the flat limit.