Screening in QED: Electron, Positron, and Gauss's Law

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SUMMARY

The discussion focuses on the concept of screening in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED), specifically addressing vacuum polarization and the implications of Gauss's Law. It explains that an electron surrounded by rings of positrons and electrons results in the same electric field outside and inside the rings, due to charge cancellation. The participant expresses confusion regarding the perceived difference in charge outside versus inside the rings, emphasizing that heuristic images used to explain these concepts do not accurately represent the underlying physics.

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  • Understanding of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED)
  • Familiarity with Gauss's Law in electrostatics
  • Knowledge of vacuum polarization effects
  • Basic concepts of electric fields and charge distributions
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Silviu
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Hello! I read today about the screening in QED and vacuum polarization. And the image they used to explain it was an electron surrounded by a ring of positrons and then by a ring of electron, which makes sense. Now, the Gauss's law outside and inside the 2 rings will give the same result, as the charge inside a sphere centered on the electron will enclose just the charge of the electron as the positron and electron rings will cancel each other, when the sphere is outside them. So for a particle outside or inside the 2 rings, the electric field (times the distance to the electron squared) it feels is the same. So I am not sure I understand why the charge outside the 2 rings seems to be smaller than inside them. Thank you!
 
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Such images are purely heuristic and does not carry any actual information or are representative of what is going on.
 
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Orodruin said:
Such images are purely heuristic and does not carry any actual information or are representative of what is going on.
So how should I think about it?
 

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