Polarization of Vacuum

Abstract

In classical electrodynamics, vacuum is a "medium" with absolute dielectric and magnetic permeability (εa, μa), which are equal to the dielectric and magnetic constant (εo, μo). The electric strength of the vacuum is infinite, that is, theoretically the electric field of any intensity cannot cause conduction currents in a vacuum due to the lack of charge carriers. In other words, the electric field strength E, the magnetic field strength H, as well as the density of electromagnetic energy in vacuum defined by them, can be infinitely large. It should be noted that these conclusions are obtained from the standpoint of the classical electrodynamics of Maxwell's linear field and, in the light of the latest achievements of quantum electrodynamics (QED), are incorrect. In QED, the instability of a physical vacuum under the influence of cosmic radiation, relativistic protons and electrons, peak electric fields, or high-intensity laser radiation is characterized by the avalanche formation of electron-positron pairs in a vacuum [1,2,3]. Nils Bohr was right when he stated 80 years ago that "it is impossible to attain a tension of the order of Es for the field that generates electron-positron pairs." ( Es= m2/e = 1,32·1016 V∙cmˉ1 the characteristic quantumelectrodynamics Sauter’s field) [3]. It should be noted that any quantum process of pair production from vacuum is accompanied by various many partial processes. In QED there is still no complete clarity on how to solve the problem of the production of pairs of elementary particles and antiparticles in a vacuum under the action of external fields, relying on the corresponding the Klein-Gordon-Fock and Diract equations.