Could electron scatter off vacuum fluctuations?

asya · Dec 24, 2014

Electron can scatter off virtual photon of Coulomb field (or even emit real photon). But why it cannot do the same off virtual photons of vacuum fluctuations without external field?

mfb · Dec 24, 2014

Energy and momentum are conserved. Such a scattering process would change them.

asya · Dec 24, 2014

Intuitively I understand that.
But formally what is a difference between a virtual photon of Coulomb field and a virtual photon of ground state vacuum fluctuations? Why in the first case conservation lows are OK but in the second one not?

mfb · Dec 24, 2014

The virtual photon from the Coulomb field has a "connection" to something else where it can transfer momentum to.

asya · Dec 24, 2014

Yes, I see...
Thank you!

Could electron scatter off vacuum fluctuations?

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