Re: Particles pairs from the vacuum

frisbieinst...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

I'm told that particle-antiparticle pairs may
spontaneously appear in the vacuum. Since all
frames of reference are the same, it seems
that the pair should have a random kinetic
energy relative to the observer. [...]

If you mean "virtual" pairs that supposedly "pop
into and out of existence", that's just an
artifact of the arcane math used in quantum field
theory, and should not be relied upon when forming
mental pictures of what is and isn't physically
"real".

If you mean "real" pairs that are produced in the
presence of a strong background gravitational
field (Hawking effect) or strong EM field, then
it's a misnomer to call this state "vacuum" - if
by "vacuum" we mean "lowest energy state". A state
without the background field has lower energy
(modulo difficulties of defining energy correctly
in GR) and therefore should be called "vacuum".

The Hawking effect has not been observed, but
creation of electron-positron pairs in a strong EM
field has been observed in heavy-ion collisions,
and the phenomenon is by now well understood,.
I'm not intimately familiar with the details off the
top of my head, but it's covered extensively in
Greiner, et al: "QED of Strong Fields".

For such cases of strong background fields,
there's a preferred frame defined by the field and
we're no longer dealing with the bland empty
Minkowski spacetime of special relativity, but
rather a spacetime with a background structure
superimposed upon it by the field.

HTH.

.

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