The temperature of the quantum vacuum
Quantum Physics
2007-05-23 v1
Abstract
We propose that the quantum vacuum may be considered as a gas of virtual photons which carry a non-vanishing linear momentum as well as a non-vanishing energy. We study, in particular, the Casimir effect in order to show that these virtual photons should satisfy a Fermi-Dirac statistics, which implies a non-zero temperature of the vacuum state.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/9810054,
title = {The temperature of the quantum vacuum},
author = {Adonai S. Sant'Anna and Daniel C. Freitas},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/9810054},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
3 pages, revtex, no figures, 9 references. This work is a new version of a paper submitted for publication in a major journal of physics