Abstract

Vacuum fluctuations of charged particles appear in the vacuum as particle-antiparticle pairs so that quantum numbers such as charge, baryon number, and lepton number are conserved. To minimize the violation of conservation of energy and conserve angular momentum, the pair appears in the most tightly bound state that has zero angular momentum. The permittivity ϵ0 of the vacuum results primarily from bound, charged lepton-charged antilepton vacuum fluctuations that are polarized by photons traveling in the vacuum. The formula for ϵ0 depends on the number NL of lepton families but is independent of the charged lepton masses. The formula for the speed c of light in the vacuum is obtained from c=1/μ0ϵ0, where μ0 is the permeability of the vacuum. The formula for c is shown to depend on the number NL of lepton families. The calculated value of c agrees with the defined value when NL=2.92.

Highlights

  • The formula for the speed c of light in the vacuum is obtained from c = 1/ μ0 e0, where μ0 is the permeability of the vacuum

  • A formula for the permittivity of a dielectric that typically consists of stable atoms and molecules is obtained by calculating the polarization density of the dielectric, which equals the product of the number density of each type of atom or molecule and the corresponding induced electric dipole moment

  • The polarization density is proportional to the electric field that induces the polarization

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Summary

Introduction

Using the numerical value of the defined speed of light in the vacuum, the number of lepton families calculated from (1) is N L = 2.92. This article is organized as follows: In Section 2 properties of the quantum vacuum are discussed with an emphasis on the structure of type 1 vacuum fluctuations. Charged antilepton vacuum fluctuation; a one-dimensional Schrödinger equation describing a harmonic oscillator interacting electromagnetically with a photon is solved exactly. The number density of charged lepton–charged antilepton vacuum fluctuations that are available to interact with a photon is calculated. A theoretical formula for the speed c of light in the vacuum is calculated using c = 1/ μ0 e0 and is shown to be a function of the number of lepton families.

The Quantum Vacuum
Calculation of the Density of Parapositronium VFs Available to Interact with a Photon
Summary and Discussion
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