Massive quantum fields in a conical background Original Research Article

Representations of the Klein-Gordon and Dirac propagators are determined in an N-dimensional conical background for massive fields twisted by an arbitrary angle 2πσ. The Dirac propagator is shown to be obtained from the Klein-Gordon propagator twisted by angles 2πσ ± D2 where D is the cone deficit angle. Vacuum expectation values are determined by a point-splitting method in the proper time representation of the propagators. Analogies with the Aharonov-Bohm effect are pointed out throughout the paper and a conjecture on an extension to fields of arbitrary spin is given.