Zero-point Energy Existence History Problems And Answers

Does electromagnetic zero-point energy exist, and if so, are there any practical applications and does it have any connection with dark energy? The theoretical basis for electromagnetic zero-point energy is clear. According to Sciama (1991):

2 History

The concept of zero-point energy originated with Max Planck in 1911. The average energy of a harmonic oscillator in this hypothesis is (where is Planck's constant and is frequency):

At the same time Einstein and Hopf ( 1910) and Einstein and Stern ( 19131913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. click on link for calendar) Events January-March January 30 House of Lords rejects Irish Home Rule Bill February 1 New York City's Grand Central Station opens as the world's largest train station. February 3 Th) were also studying the properties of zero-point energy. Shortly thereafter Nernst ( 19161916 is a leap year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar) Events January 1 -The first successful blood transfusion using blood that had been stored and cooled. Impressionist Monet paints Water Lilies'. January 8 Allied forces withdraw from) proposed that empty space was filled with zero-point electromagnetic radiationElectromagnetic radiation is a combination of oscillating electric and magnetic fields in perpendicular orientation to each other, moving through space, effectively transporting energy from one place to another. Visible light is a form of electromagnetic. Then in 1925Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s Years: 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 See also 1925 in aviation 1925 in film 1925 in literature 1925 in mu the existence of zero-point energy was shown to be “required by quantum mechanics, as a direct consequence of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle” (Sciama 19911991 like 2002, is a palindromic year. It also has the same calendar as 2002, including Easter on March 31. It is a common year starting on Tuesday. Events January January 2 Sharon Pratt Dixon is sworn in as mayor of Washington, DC becoming the first blac). As any textbook on quantum opticsQuantum optics is a field of research in physics, dealing with the application of quantum mechanics to phenomena involving light and its interactions with matter. History of Quantum Optics Light is made up of particles and hence inherently "grainy"; quant will show (e.g. Loudon 1983), the way to quantize the electromagnetic field is to associate each mode of the field with a harmonic oscillator with the result that the minimum energy per mode of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum is .

3 Problems and answers

Zero-point energy shares a problem with the Dirac sea: both are potentially infinite. In the case of zero-point energy, there are reasons for believing that a cutoff does exist in the zero-point spectrum corresponding to the Planck scale. Even this results in an enormous amount of zero-point energy whose existence is assumed to be negated (in spite of the unmistakable mandate of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle) by the claim that the mass equivalent of the energy should gravitate, resulting in an absurdly large cosmological constant, contrary to observations. Matters are not quite so straightforward.

In response to the question “Do Zero-Point Fluctuations Produce a Gravitational Field?” Sciama (1991) writes:

"We now wish to comment on the unsolved problem of the relation between zero-point fluctuations and gravitation. If we ascribe an energy to each mode of the vacuum radiation field, then the total energy of the vacuum is infinite. It would clearly be inconsistent with the original assumption of a background Minkowski space-time to suppose that this energy produces gravitation in a manner controlled by Einstein’s field equations of general relativity. It is also clear that the space-time of the real world approximates closely to the Minkowski state, at least on macroscopic scales. It thus appears that we must regularize the zero-point energy of the vacuum by subtracting it out according to some systematic prescription. At the same time, we would expect zero-point energy differences to gravitate. For example, the (negative) Casimir energy between two plane-parallel perfect conductors would be expected to gravitate; otherwise, the relativistic relation between a measured energy and gravitation would be lost."

It is precisely localizable differences in the zero-point energy that may prove to be of some practical use and that may be the basis of dark energy phenomena. Moreover it has also been found that asymmetries in the zero-point field that appear upon acceleration may be associated with certain properties of inertia, gravitation and the principle of equivalence (Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff 1994; Rueda and Haisch 1998; Rueda, Haisch and Tung 2001).

4 Properties

Lastly, insights may be offered on certain quantum properties ( Compton wavelength, de Broglie wavelength, spin) and on mass-energy equivalence (E=mc²) if it proves to be the case that zero-point fluctuations interact with matter in a phenomenon identified by Schrödinger known as zitterbewegung (Haisch and Rueda 2000; Haisch, Rueda and Dobyns 2001; Nickisch and Mollere 2002).

As intriguing as these latter possibilities are, the first order of business is to unambiguously detect and measure zero-point energy. While a Casimir experiment such as that of Forward (1984) can in principle measure energy that may be attributed to the existence of real zero-point energy, there are alternative explanations involving source-source quantum interactions in place of real zero-point energy (see Milonni 1994). To move beyond this ambiguity of interpretation experiments that will test for the reality of measurable zero-point energy will need to be devised.

5 See Also

6 References

Einstein, A. and Hopf, L., Ann. Phys., 33, 1096 (1910a); Ann. Phys., 33, 1105 (1910b).
Einstein, A. and Stern, O., Ann. Phys., 40, 551 (1913).
Forward, R., Phys. Rev. Phys. Rev. B, 30, 1700 (1984). http://www.calphysics.org/articles/Forward1984.pdf
Haisch, B. and Rueda, A., Phys. Lett. A, 268, 224 (2000). http://xxx.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9906084
Haisch, B., Rueda, A., and Dobyns, Y., Ann. Phys., 10, No. 5, 393 (2001). http://xxx.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0002069
Haisch, B., Rueda, A. and Puthoff, H.E. 1994, Phys. Rev. A., 69, 678. http://www.calphysics.org/articles/PRA94.pdf
Loudon, R., The Quantum Theory of Light, (Oxford: Clarendon Press) (1983).
Milonni, P., The Quantum Vacuum: an Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics (New York: Academic) (1994).
Nernst, W., Verh. Dtsch. Phys. Ges., 18, 83 (1916).
Nickisch, L. J. and Mollere, J., physics/0205086 (2002). http://www.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0205086
Rueda, A. and Haisch, B., Found. Phys., 28, No. 7, 1057 (1998a) http://xxx.arxiv.org/abs/physics/9802030; Phys. Lett. A, 240, 115 (1998b). http://xxx.arxiv.org/abs/physics/9802031
Rueda, A., Haisch, B. and Tung, R., preprint, gr-qc/0108026 (2001). http://xxx.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0108026
Sciama, D. W. in “The Philosophy of Vacuum” (S. Saunders and H. R. Brown, eds.), (Oxford: Clarendon Press) (1991).

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1 Existence