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A Model for Non-Cancellation of Quantum Electric Field Fluctuations

A localized charged particle oscillating near a reflecting boundary is considered as a model for non-cancellation of vacuum fluctuations. Although the mean velocity of the particle is sinusoidal, the velocity variance produced by vacuum fluctuation can either grow or decrease linearly in time, depending upon the product of the oscillation frequency and the distance to the boundary. This amounts to heating or cooling, arising from non-cancellation of electric field fluctuations, which are otherwise anticorrelated in time. Similar non-cancellations arise in quantum field effects iN time-dependent curved spacetimes. We give some estimates of the magnitude of the effect, and discuss its potential observability. We also compare the effects of vacuum fluctuations with the shot noise due to emission of a finite number of photons. We find that the two effects can be comparable in magnitude, but have distinct characteristics, and hence could be distinguished in an experiment.