Related papers: Comment on "Sonoluminescence as Quantum Vacuum Rad…
Several years ago Schwinger proposed a physical mechanism for sonoluminescence in terms of photon production due to changes in the properties of the quantum-electrodynamic (QED) vacuum arising from a collapsing dielectric bubble. This…
We review Bohr's atomic model and its extension by Sommerfeld from a mathematical perspective of wave mechanics. The derivation of quantization rules and energy levels is revisited using semiclassical methods. Sommerfeld-type integrals are…
We compute the vacuum polarization energies for a couple of soliton models in one space and one time dimensions. These solitons are mappings that connect different degenerate vacua. From the considered sample solitons we conjecture that the…
A procedure is considered which upgrades the Lagrangian description of quantum relativistic particles to the Lagrangian of a proper field theory in the case that the Klein-Gordon wave equation is classically interpreted in terms of a…
We study the properties of a class of quantum field theories endowed with an equal number of anti commuting and commuting field variables, the most common example being the supersymmetric models. Based on the scaling properties of the…
A relativistic quantum-mechanical description of guided waves is given, based on which we present an alternative way to describe and interpret the propagation of electromagnetic wave packets through an undersized waveguide. In particular,…
A relativistic quantum mechanical model to describe the quantum FEL dynamics has been developed. Neglecting the spin of electrons in the impacting beam, this model is based on the Klein-Gordon equation coupled to the Poisson equation for…
The quantum vacuum constitutes a fascinating medium of study, in particular since near-future laser facilities will be able to probe the nonlinear nature of this vacuum. There has been a large number of proposed tests of the low-energy,…
It is demonstrated that, if one remains in the framework of quantum mechanics taken alone, stationary states (energy eigenstates) are in no way singled out with respect to nonstationary ones, and moreover the stationary states would be…
Radiation by elementary sources is a basic problem in wave physics. We show that the time-domain energy flux radiated from electromagnetic and acoustic subwalength sources exhibits remarkable features. In particular, a subtle trade-off…
The question raised by [Bastin and Martin 2003 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 36, 4201] is examined and used to explain in more detail a key point of our calculations. They have sought to rebut criticisms raised by us of certain techniques…
Short remarks on the problem of assigning frequency spectra to Casimir, sonoluminescence, Hawking, Unruh, and quantum optical squeezing effects are presented
In a paper recently published in Science, Taleyarkhan et al. claimed to observe fusion from acoustic cavitation and the associated phenomenon of sonoluminescence. Although, this is a worthwhile line of investigation we explain why, in our…
In a companion paper [quant-ph/9904013] we have investigated several variations of Schwinger's proposed mechanism for sonoluminescence. We demonstrated that any realistic version of Schwinger's mechanism must depend on extremely rapid…
Various expressions for transit times in frustrated total internal reflection are analysed. The incompatibility of evanescent-wave propagation with Einstein causality is established.
We demonstrate that the analytic solution for the set of energy eigenvalues of the semi-relativistic Coulomb problem reported by B. and L. Durand is in clear conflict with an upper bound on the ground-state energy level derived by some…
It is argued that by the end of the 1920s a quantum-mechanical model could have been in place, that not only produces the atomic and molecular energy levels of the many-body Pauli equation with Coulomb interactions and external classical…
It is shown that within a quantum system, the wave field has a (potential) energy content that can be exchanged with quantum particles. Energy conservation in quantum systems holds if potential energy is correctly taken to be a field…
We point out that many wavepacket discussions for the coherence properties of particle beams are unnecessary since they deal with stationary sources; and when the problem is stationary, essentially all information is in the energy spectrum.…
The focus of these lectures is on the quantum vacuum subjected to classical electromagnetic fields. To this end we explicitly derive the renowned Heisenberg-Euler effective action in constant electromagnetic fields in a rather pedagogical…