Semi-classical Dirac vacuum polarisation in a scalar field
arXiv:1506.00895 · doi:10.1007/s00023-016-0472-y
Abstract
We study vacuum polarisation effects of a Dirac field coupled to an external scalar field and derive a semi-classical expansion of the regu-larised vacuum energy. The leading order of this expansion is given by a classical formula due to Chin, Lee-Wick and Walecka, for which our result provides the first rigorous proof. We then discuss applications to the non-relativistic large-coupling limit of an interacting system, and to the stability of homogeneous systems.
Revised version to appear in AHP (DOI: 10.1007/s00023-016-0472-y)