Revisiting canonical quantization of radiation: the role of the vacuum field

Abstract Canonical quantization has conventionally been adopted as a necessary procedure for the description of quantum radiation field by analogy between quantum-mechanical oscillators and oscillators. In this paper we provide physical basis formal interacting with matter in presence vacuum field, taken here solution classical Maxwell equations. Just canonical particle operators $$\hat{x}$$ x ^ , $$\hat{p}$$ p have shown to be response functions derive creation annihilation $$\hat{a}^{\dagger }$$ a † $$\hat{a}$$ $$[\hat{a},\hat{a}^{\dagger }]=1$$ [ , ] = 1 an expression field’s interaction. The results obtained shed new light on meaning terms suggest that neither nor are quantized isolation.