Inertial mass and the quantum vacuum fields Bernard Haisch Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, Dept. H1-12, Bldg. 252 Lockheed Martin, 3251 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, California 94304 and California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics, 366 Cambridge Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94306
[email protected] Alfonso Rueda Department of Electrical Engineering, ECS Building California State University, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, California 90840
[email protected] York Dobyns C-131 Engineering Quad, Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ 08544-5263
[email protected] (Annalen der Physik — Received: 2 June 2000, accepted 12 September 2000) Abstract — Even when the Higgs particle is finally detected, it will continue to be a legitimate question to ask whether the inertia of matter as a reaction force opposing acceleration is an intrinsic or extrinsic property of matter. General relativity specifies which geodesic path a free particle will follow, but geometrodynamics has no mechanism for generating a reaction force for deviation from geodesic motion. We discuss a different approach involving the electromagnetic zero-point field (ZPF) of the quantum vacuum. It has been found that certain asymmetries arise in the ZPF as perceived from an accelerating reference frame. In such a frame the Poynting vector and momentum flux of the ZPF become non-zero. Scattering of this quantum radiation by the quarks and electrons in matter can result in an acceleration-dependent reaction force. Both the ordinary and the relativistic forms of Newton’s second law, the equation of motion, can be derived from the electrodynamics of such ZPF-particle interactions. Conjectural arguments are given why this interaction should take place in a resonance at the Compton frequency, and how this could simultaneously provide a physical basis for the de Broglie wavelength of a moving particle.