Inertial Mass and Vacuum Fluctuations in Quantum Field Theory

TL;DR

This paper explores the connection between inertial mass and vacuum fluctuations in quantum field theory, analyzing how zero-point electromagnetic fields influence the mass of charged particles through a simple scalar field model.

Contribution

It introduces a model coupling scalar fields to electromagnetic fluctuations to examine mass renormalization and the role of cut-offs in scalar and spin-1/2 particles.

Findings

Scalar QED allows expressing physical mass via cut-off with zero bare mass.

For fermions, the relation fits observed electron mass with a finite cut-off, but bare mass cannot be zero.

Radiative corrections are minimal across all cut-off values.

Abstract

Motivated by recent works on the origin of inertial mass, we revisit the relationship between the mass of charged particles and zero-point electromagnetic fields. To this end we first introduce a simple model comprising a scalar field coupled to stochastic or thermal electromagnetic fields. Then we check if it is possible to start from a zero bare mass in the renormalization process and express the finite physical mass in terms of a cut-off. In scalar QED this is indeed possible, except for the problem that all conceivable cut-offs correspond to very large masses. For spin-1/2 particles (QED with fermions) the relation between bare mass and renormalized mass is compatible with the observed electron mass and with a finite cut-off, but only if the bare mass is not zero; for any value of the cut-off the radiative correction is very small.