Investigation of the quantum vacuum as an energy sink for subcritical and supercritical vaporization lasers

Jeffrey S Lee; Gerald B Cleaver

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03210

Investigation of the quantum vacuum as an energy sink for subcritical and supercritical vaporization lasers

Heliyon. 2020 Jan 22;6(1):e03210. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03210. eCollection 2020 Jan.

Authors

Jeffrey S Lee¹, Gerald B Cleaver^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Early Universe Cosmology and Strings Group, Center for Astrophysics, Space Physics, and Engineering Research.
² Department of Physics, Baylor University, One Bear Place, Waco, TX 76706.

Abstract

In this paper, it is shown that the quantum electrodynamic vacuum particle production rate by a vaporization laser is negligible and is not a significant energy sink at electric field strengths beyond the Schwinger Limit.

Keywords: Non-linear QED; Nonlinear physics; Optics; Particle physics; Particle production; Quantum mechanics; Quantum vacuum; Schwinger limit.