Vacuum polarization by topological defects in de Sitter spacetime

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the vacuum polarization effects associated with a massive quantum scalar field in de Sitter spacetime in the presence of gravitational topological defects. Specifically we calculate the vacuum expectation value of the field square, $<\Phi^2>$. Because this investigation has been developed in a pure de Sitter space, here we are mainly interested on the effects induced by the presence of the defects.