Related papers: The zero-point energy of elementary quantum fields

In quantum theory it is generally assumed that there exists a special state called the vacuum state and that this state is a lower bound to the energy. However it has recently been demonstrated that this is not necessarily the case for some…

The attractive force between metallic surfaces, predicted by Casimir in 1948, seems to indicate the physical existence and measurability of the quantized electromagnetic field's zero-point energy. It is shown in this article, that the…

In quantum field theory it is generally known that the energy density may be negative at a given point in spacetime. A number of papers have shown that there is a restriction on this energy density which is called a quantum inequality (QI).…

We present a solution to the cosmological constant, the zero-point energy, and the quantum gravity problems within a single comprehensive framework. We show that in quantum theories of gravity in which the zero-point energy density of the…

The present status of quantum electrodynamics (QED) theory of heavy few-electron ions is reviewed. The theoretical results are compared with available experimental data. A special attention is focused on tests of QED at strong fields and on…

We look for upper bounds of the relative energy difference of two pure quantum states with a fixed fidelity between them or upper bounds of the fidelity for a fixed relative energy difference. The results depend on the concrete families of…

There has been much recent work on quantum inequalities to constrain negative energy. These are uncertainty principle-type restrictions on the magnitude and duration of negative energy densities or fluxes. We consider several examples of…

On the way towards quantum gravity and the unification of interaction, several ideas have been rejected and avenues avoided because they were perceived as physically unviable. But in the literature there are works in which it was found the…

An approach to the foundations of quantum theory is advertised that proceeds by "reverse engineering" quantum field theory. As a concrete instance of this approach, the general boundary formulation of quantum theory is outlined.

The averaged null energy condition has known violations for quantum fields in curved space, even if one considers only achronal geodesics. Many such examples involve rapid variation in the stress-energy tensor in the vicinity of the…

A common assumption in quantum field theory is that the energy-momentum 4-vector of any quantum state must be timelike. It will be proven that this is not the case for a Dirac-Maxwell field. In this case quantum states can be shown to exist…

In classical physics the energy density of a field is always positive. However this does not hold true for quantum physics where the energy density of a field can be locally negative. There are limits on the weighted average of this…

In this article, we investigate the assumption of equipartition of energy in arguments for the entropic nature of gravity. It has already been pointed out by other authors that equipartition is not valid for low temperatures. Here we…

In research articles and patents several methods have been proposed for the extraction of zero-point energy from the vacuum. None of the proposals have been reliably demonstrated, yet they remain largely unchallenged. In this paper the…

The consensus among many theoretical physicists is that the calculated contribution of the quantum vacuum to the total energy density of the universe is approximately $10^{121}$ times the observed energy density. This is thought to be one…

For a relativistic particle moving in the presence of mean scalar and vector fields, the energy at second order in the scalar field is shown to contain two contributions in general. One is a momentum-dependent repulsive interaction…

The usual formulation of quantum theory is rather abstract. In recent work I have shown that we can, nevertheless, obtain quantum theory from five reasonable axioms. Four of these axioms are obviously consistent with both classical…

We consider a 3--body system in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with non--positive potentials and non--negative essential spectrum. Under certain requirements on the fall off of pair potentials it is proved that if at least one pair of particles has a zero…

A simple description of the vacuum energy (cosmological constant) problem for non-experts is presented. Basic features of cosmology with non-zero vacuum energy are discussed. The astronomical data which indicate that the universe is filled…

We comment on the present status, the concepts and their limitations, and the successes and open problems of the various approaches to a relativistic quantum theory of elementary particles, with a hindsight to questions concerning quantum…