Related papers: Subvacuum effects of the quantum field on the dyna…
We consider a semiconductor in a non-equilibrium steady state, with a dc current. On top of the stationary carrier motion there are fluctuations. It is shown that the stationary motion of the carriers (i.e., their drift) can have a profound…
An intriguing consequence of quantum field theory is that vacuum is not empty space; it is full of quantum fluctuating electromagnetic fields, or virtual photons, corresponding to their zero-point energy, even though the average number of…
The fundamental vacuum state of quantum fields, related to Minkowski space, produces divergent fluctuations that must be suppressed in order to bring reality to the description of physical systems. As a consequence, negative vacuum…
We propose a mechanism for the enhancement of vacuum fluctuations by means of a classical field. The basic idea is that if an observable quantity depends quadratically upon a quantum field, such as the electric field, then the application…
The single and collective particle interaction with spatially localized wavepackets is analytically and numerically studied. The role of the finite spatial width of the wavepacket on the momentum and energy variation of particles passing…
We study the dynamics of an electron wave packet in a strong constant crossed electromagnetic field with account for radiative corrections due to interaction of the electron with the vacuum fluctuations. We evaluate a wave packet composed…
Some of the most prominent theoretical predictions of modern times, e.g., the Unruh effect, Hawking radiation, and gravity-assisted particle creation, are supported by the fact that various quantum constructs like particle content and…
Based on quantum-mechanical path-integral molecular dynamics simulations the impact of nuclear quantum effects on the vibrational and hydrogen bond dynamics in liquid water is investigated. The instantaneous fluctuations in the frequencies…
An electromagnetic wave-packet propagating in a linear, homogeneous, and isotropic medium changes shape while its envelope travels with different velocities at different points in spacetime. In general, a wave-packet can be described as a…
We treat the effects of quantum field fluctuations on the decay of a meta-stable state of a self-coupled scalar field. We consider two varieties of field fluctuations and their potential effects in a semiclassical description. The first are…
We study the effects of the electromagnetic vacuum on the motion of a nonrelativistic electron. First, we derive the equation of motion for the expectation value of the electron's position operator. We show how this equation has the same…
This is a review of recent work on quantum fluctuations of the electric field and of stress tensor operators and their physical effects. The probability distribution for vacuum fluctuations of the electric field is Gaussian, but that for…
We consider a multilevel hydrogen atom in interaction with the quantum electromagnetic field and separately calculate the contributions of the vacuum fluctuation and radiation reaction to the rate of change of the mean atomic energy of the…
The electromagnetic vacuum is known to have energy. It has been recently argued that the quantum vacuum can possess momentum, that adds up to the momentum of matter. This ``Casimir momentum'' is closely related to the Casimir effect, in…
We argue that quantum-gravitational fluctuations in the space-time background give the vacuum non-trivial optical properties that include diffusion and consequent uncertainties in the arrival times of photons, causing stochastic…
The properties of quantum mechanics with a discrete phase space are studied. The minimum uncertainty states are found, and these states become the Gaussian wave packets in the continuum limit. With a suitably chosen Hamiltonian that gives…
Special relativity combined with the stochastic vacuum flux impact model lead to an explicit interpretation of many of the phenomena of elementary quantum mechanics. We examine characteristics of a repetitively impacted submicroscopic…
The use of atomic decay rates as a probe of sub-vacuum phenomena will be studied. Because electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations are essential for radiative decay of excited atomic states, decay rates can serve as a measure of the suppression…
Quantum field theory allows for the suppression of vacuum fluctuations, leading to sub-vacuum phenomena. One of these is the appearance of local negative energy density. Selected aspects of negative energy will be reviewed, including the…
We investigate the role of quantum effects (e.g. zero-point energy fluctuations) in the physics of nanotube- and nanowire-based electromechanical sensors as discussed in a recent article [Postma et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 223105 (2005)].…