Fuzzy operators and the quantized electromagnetic field in the very-high-energy regime

Abstract

In this work, starting from commutation relations between phase-space operators (in "first quantization") we define averaged creation and annihilation operators and show that they satisfy a simple, deformed commutation relation. By extending this relation to the quantized electromagnetic field, we determine the new vacuum state which has a non-zero component in standard occupied states. In addition we are led to non-linear de Broglie relations for photons, which appreciably depart from linearity only in the very-high-energy regime. The nonlinear Compton scattering that follows from these assumptions is discussed. We suggest that this hypothesis may be a way to deal with the transparency of the electromagnetic background light (EBL) and show that it may lead to an attenuation in the cosmological-constant problem of several orders of magnitude.