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Correlations detected in a quantum vacuum

A vacuum as described by quantum mechanics is perhaps the most fundamental but mysterious state in physics. The discovery of correlations between electric-field fluctuations in such a vacuum represents a major advance.
  1. Andrey S. Moskalenko

    1. Andrey S. Moskalenko is in the Department of Physics, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, South Korea, and in the Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, Germany.

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  2. Timothy C Ralph

    1. Timothy C. Ralph is at the School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia.

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A surprising result in quantum mechanics is that a vacuum is not empty. Particles can appear out of nothing for very short periods of time. This phenomenon can be understood as a consequence of the energy–time uncertainty principle, whereby restriction of a measurement to an extremely short time interval leads to large fluctuations in energy in the interval. Although indirect effects of these ‘virtual’ particles are well studied, it is only by probing a vacuum on very short timescales that the particles become ‘real’ and can be directly observed1. But do these particles appear completely randomly, or are they correlated in space and time? Writing in Nature, Benea-Chelmus et al.2 provide an answer to this question by finding evidence for correlations between fluctuations in the electric field of a vacuum.

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Nature 568, 178-179 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01083-z

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