Electromagnetic Zero Point Field as Active Energy Source in the Intergalactic Medium

TL;DR

This paper explores the hypothesis that the electromagnetic zero point field (ZPF) actively accelerates particles in intergalactic space, potentially explaining cosmic ray phenomena, gamma-ray backgrounds, and cosmic voids, with recent challenges to the classical mechanism discussed.

Contribution

It investigates the active role of the electromagnetic zero point field in intergalactic particle acceleration and addresses recent theoretical challenges to this classical view.

Findings

ZPF may serve as a distributed energy source in intergalactic space.

The mechanism could explain ultrahigh energy cosmic rays without localized sources.

Recent statistical mechanics challenges to classical ZPF acceleration are examined.

Abstract

For over twenty years the possibility that the electromagnetic zero point field (ZPF) may actively accelerate electromagnetically interacting particles in regions of extremely low particle density (as those extant in intergalactic space (IGS) with n < 1 particle/m^3 has been studied and analyzed. This energizing phenomenon has been one of the few contenders for acceleration of cosmic rays (CR), particularly at ultrahigh energies. The recent finding by the AGASA collaboration (Phys. Rev. Lett., 81, 1163, 1998) that the CR energy spectrum does not display any signs of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cut-off (that should be present if these CR particles were indeed generated in localized ultrahigh energies CR sources, as e.g., quasars and other highly active galactic nuclei), may indicate the need for an acceleration mechanism that is distributed throughout IGS as is the case with the ZPF. Other unexplained phenomena that receive an explanation from this mechanism are the generation of X-ray and gamma-ray backgrounds and the existence of Cosmic Voids. However recently, a statistical mechanics kind of challenge to the classical (not the quantum) version of the zero-point acceleration mechanism has been posed (de la Pena and Cetto, The Quantum Dice, 1996). Here we briefly examine the consequences of this challenge and a prospective resolution.