English

Vacuum Polarization Effects from Fermion Zero-Point Energy

High Energy Physics - Theory 2007-05-23 v2

Abstract

The influence of an external electromagnetic field on the vacuum structure of a quantized Dirac field is investigated by considering the quantum corrections to classical Maxwell's lagrangian density induced by fluctuations of the non-perturbative vacuum. Effective Lagrangian densities for Maxwell's theory in (3+1) and (2+1) dimensions are derived from the vacuum zero-point energy of the fermion field in the context of a consistent Pauli-Villars-Rayski subtraction scheme, recovering Euler-Kockel-Heisenberg and Maxwell-Chern-Simons effective theories. Effective scalar quantum electrodymanics as well as low temperature effects in both spinor and scalar theories are also discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0201204,
  title  = {Vacuum Polarization Effects from Fermion Zero-Point Energy},
  author = {J. L. Tomazelli},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0201204},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

LaTex file, 16 pages, no figures, new section and references added

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:08:49.922Z