Noninertial Zero-point Fluctuations: a Laboratory-oriented Introduction

Old results of Letaw on scalar vacuum radiation patterns that could be of interest for phonon analogies are used to emphasize the radio-metric nature of the Frenet-Serret invariants of the stationary worldlines, rather than sticking to the thermal interpretation of the vacuum excitations as apparent for the uniformly accelerated quantum detector (Unruh's interpretation). I focus next on the electromagnetic vacuum noise surveying the Hacyan-Sarmiento approach for calculating electromagnetic vacuum physical quantities. The application to the circular worldline led Mane to propose the identification of the Hacyan-Sarmiento zero-point radiation with the ordinary synchrotron radiation, but here I provide some simple counter-arguments. I also briefly discuss Bell and Leinaas' proposal of considering the electron as a Unruh-DeWitt spin polarization detector at storage rings. In the final section, I sketch the similarity between the Unruh effect and the anomalous Doppler effect. A separate observation of the latter would mean a confirmation of the possibility of the first.