AAWSAP DIRD, Concepts for Extracting Energy from the Quantum Vacuum, April 2010

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Given the heuristic value of certain aspects of SED modeling, but with the shortcomings
outlined above noted, SED theorists de la Pena and Cetto have proposed a modification
to SED they call LSED {linear SED) (Reference 74). The modification consists of the
addition of three new constraining principles that result in a form of convergence with
non relativistic quantum mechanics while retaining some of the appealing attributes of
standard SED (for example, quantum states being stable on the basis of a dynamic
balance between absorption and emission of background vacuum fluctuation fields).
The added constraints (for example, an added constraint that invokes detailed energy
balance for separate frequencies) result in correcting several known problems with
standard SED. For example, now the equilibrium spectrum is Planck's, not Rayleigh­
Jeans, and wavelike behavior of matter and nonlocality issues can be addressed, and so
forth. The issue of continuous vacuum energy conversion has yet to be addressed in
this new formalism, however, so that remains for the future.
QED Without Second-Quantized Fields
As yet another alternative to canonical second-quantized QED, Barut (Reference 75)
has proposed that effects attributable to vacuum ZPF can be derived with a theory in
which there are source (matter) fluctuation fields but no vacuum fluctuation fields, and
that even the former can be eliminated. Barut's approach is developed in considerable
detail as an independent, self-consistent, formulation of QED in its own right. Barut
argues that effects normally attributed to vacuum fluctuations in the second-quantized,
linear theory of the radiation field can be equally well computed within the framework
of a non-second-quantized, nonlinear theory which is based entirely on matter wave
functions alone. His program is to assess how far one can go in understanding radiative
processes without second quantization or vacua that fluctuate. Barut and his
collaborators have successfully applied the theory to the Lamb shift and spontaneous
emission (Reference 76, 77), problems of cavity QED (Reference 78), Casimir-Polder
and van der Waals forces (Reference 79), calculations of the electron's ge- 2 factor
(Reference 80-82), 12 and the Davies-Unruh effect (Reference 83) among others.
Given that the formalism of second-quantized field operators are not used at all in the
Barut approach, the seemingly quantized properties of fields are taken to simply reflect
first quantization of the sources. Therefore, in the absence of the independent existence
of second-quantized field fluctuations, the QED arguments concerning immutability and
nondegradability of quantized vacuum fluctuation fields, and the corollary proscription
against potential conversion of energy from such fields, do not apply. As in the
neoclassical approach, the question of the conversion of quantum ZPE to other forms
must be diverted to consideration of the global properties of matter fluctuation
interactions in the as-yet-incomplete development of the Barut approach.
EXAMPLES OF DEGRADABLE OF DECAYING VACUUM
In closing, several examples of a degradable vacuum that are predicted by quantum
field theory, quantum field theory in curved spacetime, and the Standard Model of
elementary particle physics will be reviewed. It turns out that the vacuum in QED
theory is in fact degradable in spite of its "hardwired" ZPF modes.
12 ge is the electron's gyromagnetic ratio.
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