paper

Motion of a mirror under infinitely fluctuating quantum vacuum stress

arXiv:1312.4591 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.89.085009

Abstract

The actual value of the quantum vacuum energy density is generally regarded as irrelevant in non-gravitational physics. However, this paper gives a non-gravitational system where this value does have physical significance. The system is a mirror with an internal degree of freedom which interacts with a scalar field. We find that the force exerted on the mirror by the field vacuum undergoes wild fluctuations with a magnitude proportional to the value of the vacuum energy density, which is mathematically infinite. This infinite fluctuating force gives infinite instantaneous acceleration of the mirror. We show that this infinite fluctuating force and infinite instantaneous acceleration make sense because they will not result in infinite fluctuation of the mirror's position. On the contrary, the mirror's fluctuating motion will be confined in a small region due to two special properties of the quantum vacuum: (1) the vacuum friction which resists the mirror's motion and (2) the strong anti-correlation of vacuum fluctuations which constantly changes the direction of the mirror's infinite instantaneous acceleration and thus cancels the effect of infinities to make the fluctuation of the mirror's position finite.

18pages, 6 figures

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