Ground State Energy of Massive Scalar Field in the Global Monopole Background

Abstract

We consider the ground state energy of scalar massive field in the spacetime of a pointlike global monopole. Using zeta function regularization method we obtain the heat kernel coefficients for this system. We show that the coefficient $B_1$ contains additional contribution due to the non-trivial topological structure of the spacetime. Taking into account the heat kernel coefficients we obtain that the ground state energy of the scalar field is zero. We also discuss our result using dimensional considerations.