QED Vacuum Loops and Dark Energy

Abstract

A QED--based "bootstrap" mechanism is suggested as an explanation for the vacuum energy that furnished the initial impulse for Inflation, and continues on to provide present day Dark Energy. Virtual vacuum fluctuations are assumed to generate effective electromagnetic fields whose average value corresponds to an effective c--number $A_{\mu}^{\rm vac}(x)$, which is itself equal to the vacuum expectation value of the operator $A_{\mu}(x)$ in the presence of that $A_{\mu}^{\rm vac}(x)$. Lorentz invariance is manifest, as every observer would measure the same electric field in his or her own reference frame. The model has one arbitrary parameter $\xi$, and fits the energy density of present day Dark Energy for $\xi\sim O(1)$.