Decay of accelerated protons and the existence of the Fulling-Davies-Unruheffect - art. no. 151301

We investigate the weak decay of uniformly accelerated protons in the conte xt of standard quantum field theory. Because the mean proper lifetime of a particle is a scalar, the same value for this observable must be obtained i n the inertial and coaccelerated frames. We are only able to achieve this e quality by considering the Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect. This reflects the f act that the Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect is mandatory for the consistency o f quantum field theory.