Related papers: Movement and Fluctuations of the Vacuum
We consider a scalar QED model for the frictional force and the momentum fluctuations of a polarizable particle in thermal equilibrium with radiation or in hyperbolic motion in a vacuum. In the former case the loss of particle kinetic…
With recent developments in high-precision quantum measurements, the question of whether observations of decoherence from spacetime fluctuations are accessible experimentally arises. Here we investigate the dynamics of bound states…
The cosmological constant problem arises because the magnitude of vacuum energy density predicted by quantum mechanics is about 120 orders of magnitude larger than the value implied by cosmological observations of accelerating cosmic…
We investigate the vacuum and thermal fluctuations of a neutral massless scalar field living in Minkowski spacetime and interacting with a finite number of point-like obstacles, modelled by zero-range potentials. The system is described…
There are two types of fluctuations in the quantum vacuum: type 1 vacuum fluctuations are on shell and can interact with matter in specific, limited ways that have observable consequences; type 2 vacuum fluctuations are off shell and cannot…
I present a theory of quantum gravity based on the principle of gravitational energy fluctuations. Gravitational energy fluctuations -- gravitons -- are responsible for elastic scattering of subatomic particles. Such scattering corresponds…
The interplay between thermodynamics, general relativity and quantum mechanics has long intrigued researchers. Recently, important advances have been obtained in thermodynamics, mainly regarding its application to the quantum domain through…
Why does {\bf F} equal m{\bf a} in Newton's equation of motion? How does a gravitational field produce a force? Why are inertial mass and gravitational mass the same? It appears that all three of these seemingly axiomatic foundational…
We show that motion and gravity affect the precision of quantum clocks. We consider a localised quantum field as a fundamental model of a quantum clock moving in spacetime and show that its state is modified due to changes in acceleration.…
Quantum field theory is constructed upon the assumption of stabilities of the vacuum and of the one-particle state. For finite temperature, the one-particle state becomes unstable because of thermal fluctuations, whereas the thermal vacuum…
Dispersion forces between neutral material bodies are due to fluctuations of the polarization of the bodies. For bodies in equilibrium these forces are often referred to as Casimir-Lifshitz forces. For bodies in relative motion, in addition…
Zero-point fluctuations are a universal consequence of quantum theory. Vacuum fluctuations of electromagnetic field have provided crucial evidence and guidance for QED as a successful quantum field theory with a defining gauge symmetry…
The Casimir force is a spectacular consequence of the existence of vacuum fluctuations and thus deserves a place in courses on quantum theory. We argue that the scattering approach within a one-dimensional field theory is well suited to…
We study quantum dissipative effects due to the non-relativistic, bounded, accelerated motion of a single neutral atom in the presence of a planar perfect mirror, i.e. a perfect conductor at all frequencies. We consider a simplified model…
We present a study of the static and dynamical Casimir effects for a quantum field theory satisfying generalized Robin boundary condition, of a kind that arises naturally within the context of quantum circuits. Since those conditions may…
We describe space--time fluctuations by means of small fluctuations of the metric on a given background metric. From a minimally coupled Klein--Gordon equation we obtain within a weak-field approximation up to second order and an averaging…
Fluctuations are ubiquitous in nature. They are one of the fundamental building blocks of quantum mechanics and are responsible for a wide variety of phenomena in many areas of physics, ranging from biology to cosmology. Far from any…
We investigate the interaction caused by quantum gravitational vacuum fluctuations between a gravitationally polarizable object and a gravitational boundary, and find a position-dependent energy shift of the object, which induces a force in…
We investigate the effect of time-dependent boundary conditions on the dynamics of a quantum bouncer -- a particle falling in a homogeneous gravitational field on a moving mirror. We examine more particularly the way a moving mirror…
We consider a system consisting of a quantum, massless, real scalar field, in the presence of nonlinear mirrors: infinite parallel planes, upon which the field satisfies nonlinear boundary conditions. The latter are implemented by…