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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document from the Defense Intelligence Agency, dated 6 April 2010, is one in a series of FY 2009 advanced technology reports produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) program. It reviews the physics of zero-point field energy in the quantum vacuum and proposed schemes for extracting it, including the Casimir effect, Forward's vacuum-fluctuation battery, and resonant dielectric spheres. It notes that no practicable extraction technique has been demonstrated in the laboratory.
“Edwards Air Force Base”1 page
UNCLASSIFIED//FIHl 8FFHil.t.k Wfili IH.k\f This ZPE term is added to the classical blackbody spectral radiation energy density p(rn)drn (that is, the energy per unit volume of radiation in the frequency interval (rn, rn + dw)) (Reference 14): w' [ hrn hw]p(w)dw~-.-, . +- dw n-c exp(hm; kT)- 1 2 hm' ( hm J~--,-,coth -- dw, 2n-c 2kT ( 1) where c is the speed of light (3.0 x 108 m/s), k is Boltzmann's constant (1.3807 x 10 23 J/K), Tis the absolute temperature, and w = 2rrv is the angular frequency. The factor outside the square brackets in the first line of Equation (1) is the density of mode (or photon) states (that is, the number of states per unit frequency interval per unit volume); the first term inside the square brackets is the standard Planck blackbody radiation energy per mode; and the second term inside the square brackets is the quantum zero-point energy per mode. Equation (1) is called the Zero-Point Planck (ZPP) spectral radiation energy density. Planck first added the ZPE term to the classical blackbody spectral radiation energy density in 1912, although it was Einstein, Hopf, and Stern who actually recognized the physical significance of this term in 1913 (Reference 14). Direct spectroscopic evidence for the reality of ZPE was provided by Mulliken's boron monoxide spectral band experiments in 1924, several months before Heisenberg first derived the ZPE for a harmonic oscillator from his new quantum matrix mechanics theory (Reference 15). Following this line of reasoning, quantum physics predicts that all of space must be filled with electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations (aka the zero-point field) creating a universal sea of zero-point energy. The density of this energy depends critically on where the frequency of the zero-point fluctuations ceases. Since space itself is currently thought to break up into a kind of "quantum foam" at the Planck length, ),p ( ~ 10 35 m), it is argued that the ZPF must cease at the corresponding vp. If true, then the ZPE density would be~ 10113 J/m3 , 108 orders of magnitude greater than the radiant energy at the center of the Sun! Formally, in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) theory, the ZPE energy density is taken as infinite; however, arguments based on quantum gravity considerations yield a finite cutoff at vp. Therefore, the spectral energy density is given by p(w)dw = (rlw3/2rr 2c3)dw, which integrates to an energy density, pE = Ylvp 4/8rr 2c3 "" 10113 J/m 3 . As large as the ZPE is, interactions with it are typically cut off at lower frequencies depending on the particle coupling constants or their structure. Nevertheless, the potential ZPF energy density predicted by quantum physics is enormous. Many experts have claimed that an enormous vacuum ZPF energy density would produce a corresponding enormous gravitational force of attraction (via Einstein's General Theory of Relativity) that would cause the immediate collapse of the entire universe. Thus they argue that such enormous vacuum energy cannot be real due to the fact that our universe is observed to be undergoing accelerated expansion. However, such arguments are spurious because numerous studies in quantum field theory show that it is the low-frequency ZPF modes that contribute significantly to the physical vacuum energy, because 1) only the low-frequency modes are affected by the 5 UNCLASSIFIED,' }P8"1 8PPll!l"'I! l!l!il! 8111!¥
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