Vacuum energy and relativistic invariance

Abstract

It is argued that the zero-point energies of free quantum fields diverge at most quadratically and not quartically, as is generally believed. This is a consequence of the relativistic invariance which requires that the energy density of the vacuum $\rho$ and its pressure $p$ satisfy $\rho=-p$. The usually obtained quartic divergence is an artifact of the use of a noninvariant regularization which violates this relation. One consequence of our results is that the zero-point energies of free massless fields vanish. Implications for the cosmological constant problem are briefly discussed.