QED vacuum

For articles related to the QED vacuum, see Quantum vacuum (disambiguation).

The QED vacuum or quantum electrodynamic vacuum is the field-theoretic vacuum of quantum electrodynamics. It is the lowest energy state (the ground state) of the electromagnetic field when the fields are quantized.[1] When the Planck constant is hypothetically allowed to approach zero, QED vacuum is converted to classical vacuum, which is to say, the vacuum of classical electromagnetism.[2][3]

Another field-theoretic vacuum is the QCD vacuum of the Standard Model.

A Feynman diagram (box diagram) for photon-photon scattering, one photon scatters from the transient vacuum charge fluctuations of the other
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Cao was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mackay was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference classical was invoked but never defined (see the help page).