https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-013-2642-0
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
QED vacuum loops and vacuum energy
1
Department of Physics, Brown University, Providence, RI, 02912, USA
2
Institut Non Linéaire de Nice, UMR 7335 CNRS, 1361 Route des Lucioles, 06560, Valbonne, France
* e-mail: fried@het.brown.edu
Received:
7
August
2013
Revised:
17
October
2013
Published online:
26
November
2013
A QED-based “bootstrap” mechanism is suggested as a possible source of vacuum energy. In place of the conventional assumption that the vacuum expectation value of the current operator j
μ
vanishes in the absence of a classical, external field, one notes the possibility that, on very small scales, the vacuum fluctuations can generate an equation for an effective, C-number 
giving rise to a finite and computable vacuum energy.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and Società Italiana di Fisica, 2013
