Related papers: Vacuum fluctuations, accelerated motion and confor…
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…
We study the accelerated motion of mirrors and the photonic Unruh effect. The solutions of Maxwell's equations with appropriate boundary conditions in Rindler coordinates are found. The canonical quantization of the field is carried out…
We consider the back-reaction of cosmological fluctuations on the local expansion rate averaged over a space-like hypersurface of constant value of a clock field. We show that in the infrared limit, the fluctuations lead to a decrease in…
From the generalized fluctuation-dissipation theorem, it is known that a body at rest made of nonreciprocal material may experience a torque, even in vacuum, if it is not in thermal equilibrium with its environment. However, it does not…
We analyzed the influence of static gravitational field on the vacuum and proposed the concept of inhomogeneous vacuum. According to the observational result of the light deflection in solar gravitational field as well as the corresponding…
In this paper we study the effects of quantum scalar field vacuum fluctuations on scalar test particles in an analog model for the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spatially flat geometry. In this scenario, the cases with one and two perfectly…
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…
The notion of vacuum fluctuations of the gravitational field plays important role in cosmology. The strong variable gravitational field of the very early Universe amplifies these fluctuations and transforms them into macroscopical…
Casimir physics covers a wealth of phenomena where forces between macroscopic objects are induced by long range fluctuations of either classical or quantum origin. Fluctuations of the quantum electrodynamic vacuum epitomize this type of…
This paper studies the impact of vacuum polarization on light propagation in the background of a distorted, deformed compact object. Focusing on a spacetime containing two quadrupole parameters associated with the central object and…
A moving dielectric appears to light as an effective gravitational field. At low flow velocities the dielectric acts on light in the same way as a magnetic field acts on a charged matter wave. We develop in detail the geometrical optics of…
We investigate an influence of virtual particles on the classical motion of a system in Minkowski and Euclidean spaces. Our results indicate that fluctuations of fields different from the main field decelerate significantly its motion at…
Although the whole conformal group $SO(4,2)$ can be considered as a symmetry in a classical massless field theory, the subgroup of special conformal transformations (SCT), usually related to transitions to uniformly accelerated frames,…
Relativistic mirrors can be realized with strongly nonlinear Langmuir waves excited by intense laser pulses in underdense plasma. On reflection from the relativistic mirror the incident light affects the mirror motion. The corresponding…
We study the Dynamical Casimir Effect resulting from the oscillatory motion of either one or two flat semitransparent mirrors, coupled to a quantum real and massless scalar field. Our approach is based on a perturbative evaluation, in the…
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…
Thermodynamical fluctuations of temperature in mirrors may produce surface fluctuations not only through thermal expansion in mirror body but also through thermal expansion in mirror coating. We analyze the last "surface" effect which can…
The presence of cosmological perturbations affects the background metric and matter configuration in which the perturbations propagate. This effect, studied a long time ago for gravitational waves, also is operational for scalar…
We study the effects of a static and uniform magnetic field on the evolution of energy density fluctuations present in a medium. By numerically solving the relativistic Boltzmann-Vlasov equation within the relaxation time approximation, we…
Although the prospect is more plausible than it might appear, the answer to the title question is, unfortunately, "probably not." Quantum fluctuations of vacuum energy can focus light, and while the effect is tiny, the distribution of…