Use natural units and the Minkowski metric . For the real scalar field, choose . The conjugate momentum is . Under an active translation , the density changes by . The Noether theorem therefore gives the canonical stress-energy tensor
Its divergence is , which vanishes on the Klein-Gordon equation. With vanishing flux at spatial infinity, the charges are conserved. In particular,
The minus sign is required because and . These are the four-momentum of a free real scalar field.
For canonical quantization, impose , with both equal-time field-field commutators zero. Inverting the mode expansion gives
The equal-time canonical commutation relation then yields
For example, the two mixed field-momentum terms in the first commutator have coefficients and ; the delta function sets their sum to one.
Insert the mode expansion into the quadratic energy. Spatial integration supplies . In the and terms, the coefficient is proportional to . The remaining terms give
Here is the divergent zero-point energy, formally . Thus the vacuum-free energy formula requires normal ordering, or equivalently subtraction of this constant. In a finite box with a cutoff this is the ordinary sum , so the subtraction is explicit before passing to the continuum.
Likewise, use the Hermitian momentum expression . Terms containing two annihilators or two creators vanish by antisymmetry under , leaving the symmetric number-operator expression. Its vacuum term is zero with an inversion-symmetric regulator. Therefore the normal-ordered free scalar four-momentum is
The creation operator commutators follow directly from :
Starting from a vacuum annihilated by every , each creation adds a particle of mass , energy and momentum . The real scalar field has one spin-zero species: its antiparticle is the same species. Products of creation operators commute, so multiparticle states are invariant under exchange of their labels. In a normalized discrete mode, exists for every ; there is no exclusion restriction. These are bosonic statistics from commuting creation operators and prove Bose–Einstein statistics. For completeness, the single-mode thermal sum gives , the Bose-Einstein distribution at zero chemical potential.