On the dependence of the speed of light in vacuum on temperature

Abstract

It is shown that the interaction of the electromagnetic field with the vacuum of the electron-positron field gives rise to dependence of the speed of light propagation on the radiation temperature. Estimation show that in the modern epoch, even at very high temperatures, such for example which exist in the star interiors, the temperature-dependent correction to the speed of light proves to be extremtly small. But in the cosmological model of the hot Universe, in the first instances after the Big Bang the temperature was so high that the speed of light exceeded its present value by many orders of magnitude. The effect of dependence of the speed of light on temperature must be important for understanding the early evolution of the Universe.