Photon time delay resulting from vacuum fluctuations: the vacuum as a dielectric

Abstract

It is not possible to detect a vacuum fluctuation without a test particle interacting with the vacuum fluctuation in a measurable manner. In the quantum electrodynamics calculation presented here, a photon traveling through the vacuum is used as the test particle to determine properties of the vacuum resulting from vacuum fluctuations. In particular, this article (1) discusses the mathematical procedure for describing a lepton-antilepton bound state that is a vacuum fluctuation, (2) describes the photon interacting with and being incorporated into the bound state to form a quasi-stationary bound state, and (3) calculates the electromagnetic decay rate of the quasi-stationary bound state.