The Quantum Dice

Abstract

2.5.1 Fluctuating metric 2.5.2 Stochastic electrodynamics 3 ELEMENTS OF ELECTRODYNAMICS 3.1 The free radiation field 3.1.1 Electromagnetic potentials 3.1.2 Normal modes of the field 3.1.3 Hamiltonian of the radiation field Development in terms of plane waves States of circular polarization Canonical representation Transition to the continuum Sums over polarization 3.2 Electrodynamics of the point charge 3.2.1 The Abraham-Lorentz equation of motion 3.2.2 The radiation reaction: a discussion 3.2.3 The need for a cutoff 3.3 Causal version of the Abraham-Lorentz equation 3.4 The extended charge PART II: THEME 4 THE ZEROPOINT RADIATION FIELD 4.1 Discovery and nature of the zeropoint field 4.1.1 The origins of stochastic electrodynamics 4.1.2 The zeropoint field, classical or quantum? 4.1.3 Recovery of atomic stability 4.1.4 Further comments on the zeropoint field 4.2 Properties of the zeropoint field 4.2.1 Density of states and spectral density 4.2.2 Lorentz invariance of the zeropoint field spectrum 4.2.3 Some sequels of the Wien and Stefan-Boltzmann laws 4.2.4 Energy content of the zeropoint field 4.3 Statistical description of the zeropoint field 4.3.1 Two-point correlations 4.3.2 Distributions of random field variables 4.3.3 Statistics of the zeropoint field 4.3.4 Comparison with the second-quantized radiation field 5 THE EQUILIBRIUM RADIATION FIELD 5.1 The Planck distribution 5.1.1 Nonclassical nature of stochastic electrodynamics 5.1.2 Moments ofthe energy distribution

Real vacuum fluctuations and virtual Unruh radiation

“…Normally the two criteria coincide; however the Unruh effect makes it clear that this is not the case in an accelerating frame. According to the first criterion, the transformed vacuum state is still a vacuum [8]; according to the second criterion it contains photons, as suggested in [20]. The perspective presented here is obviously in support of the first criterion.…”

“…Alternative derivations have been published by the present authors in Refs. [8,9] and papers mentioned therein. To a large extent, such reiterated efforts have been driven by the search for a clearcut answer to the question: is the hypothesis of the (real) zpf either necessary or sufficient to derive Planck's law under the conditions of thermal equilibrium, or else is the zpf a dispensable element, the assumption of discreteness or quantization being instead necessary to achieve this goal?…”

“…Consideration of the existence of this field has led to a number of interesting results related e.g. to Planck's law, [6] Casimir forces, and van der Waals forces, [7,8]. In more general terms, the study of the effects of this field on matter is at the basis of stochastic electrodynamics, which has been developed to the extent that it offers an alternative physical explanation of quantummechanical phenomena [8,9].…”

Electromagnetic zero point field as active energy source in the intergalactic medium

“…It can be shown that such ZPF is also present in free space, and cogent arguments can be given for its reality [19,20]. Observe however, that when the temperature is set to zero (or close to zero) ρ(ω, T )dω → ρ 0 (ω)dω and because of the ω 3 dependence, the Einstein-Hopf drag disappears.…”

“…Recently in their 1996 textbook on the theory of Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED) and related theories, de la Peña and Cetto [20] have challenged at least some aspects of the ZPF acceleration concept. In a lucid reanalysis [27] of the Boyer derivation [21] of the translational kinetic energy growth, they argue that if an arguably more realistic non-Markovian stochastic process is assumed for the phenomenon in its classical form, no systematic translational kinetic energy growth takes place.…”