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The Dirac sea is a theoretical model of the electron vacuum as an infinite sea of electrons with negative energy, now called positrons. It was first postulated by the British physicist Paul Dirac in 1930[1] to explain the anomalous negative-energy quantum states predicted by the relativistically-correct Dirac equation for electrons.[2] The positron, the antimatter counterpart of the electron, was originally conceived of as a hole in the Dirac sea, before its experimental discovery in 1932.[nb 1]
In hole theory, the solutions with negative time evolution factors[clarification needed] are reinterpreted as representing the positron, discovered by Carl Anderson. The interpretation of this result requires a Dirac sea, showing that the Dirac equation is not merely a combination of special relativity and quantum mechanics, but it also implies that the number of particles cannot be conserved.[3]
Dirac sea theory has been displaced by quantum field theory, though they are mathematically compatible.
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