Adiabatic regularization for spin-$1$ fields

Abstract: We analyze the adiabatic regularization scheme to renormalize Proca fields in a four-dimensional Friedmann-Lema^{i}tre-Robertson-Walker spacetime. The adiabatic method is well established for scalar and spin-$1/2$ fields, but is not yet fully understood for spin-$1$ fields. We give the details of the construction and show that, in the massless limit, the renormalized stress-energy tensor of the Proca field is closely related to that of a minimally coupled scalar field. Our result is in full agreement with other approaches, based on the effective action, which also show a discontinuity in the massless limit. The scalar field can be naturally regarded as a St\"ueckelberg-type field. We also test the consistency of our results in de Sitter space.