We know that the annihilation of a particle-antiparticle pair like an electron-positron results in energy released with the value of the sum of both energies from the particles. That means both the particcule and the antiparticle have positive energy.
We also know that, when describing quantum fluctuations of the vacuum, the energy released by the annihilation of a virtual particle-antiparticle pair is zero, so we must assume that the virtual antiparticle has negative energy, even though conservation of energy does not apply for virtual particles.
Do antiparticles have positive or negative energy? Does this relate to the negative energy particle solutions of the Dirac equation?
They don't. It's not useful to identify the history of physics with physics.
Antiparticles are particles, whose ``internal'' charges (electric, weak, strong,...) are conjugate relative to the charges of particles. (Not all charges are additive!) Their energy is always positive, just like the energy of ``particles''.
What about the virtual particle-antiparticle pair? It is said that one of those has negative energy in order to result in a zero energy sum in annihilation.
When an electron ``annihilates'' a positron, the initial energy is, at least 2mc2 where m is the mass of the electron, which is equal to that of a positron.
Global energy conservation implies that the final energy is equal to the initial energy.
Quantum fluctuations don't change the fact that initial energy=final energy.
A `` virtual'' particle doesn't have a well-defined mass, or energy; similarly for a pair of ``virtual'' particles.
What's ``said'' doesn't mean anything-these are technical issues, whose formulation is known and it can be found in textbooks, not popular books, or history books.
Dear Manuel,
Quantum Field Theory, is a "theory".
Conversion of the energy making up the rest masses of an electron-positron pair to the energy making up real physically existing electromagnetic photons is experimentally confirmed "physical reality".
The electron is assigned by convention a negatively signed electric charge while the positron is known to be in all respects identical to the electron except that its electric charge is experimentally known to be opposite that of the electron.
Best Regards, André
scientifically, the Big bang is not supported, therefore the theory of matter/anti-matter will be dismissed. Yes, the universe is made of duality with complementary partners not annihilate each other, I.e. Time-Space, Wave-temperature, male-female,..and up/down. The universe is made of two kinds of hydrogen, Sun-hydrogen and periodic table (life-hydrogen) Hydrogen. https://www.academia.edu/38373675/Creation_of_a_Quantum_Mechanic_Universe_and_its_Rotation.doc or Article DarkMatter in the Quantum Mechanic Universe
best to all
1. Particles with positive and negative rest energy are just an interpretation, and not a physical state of a particle. The invariant relation for the particles generalized momentum in an external field (φ, A) in the form (E - qφ)2 - (cp - qA)2 = m2c4 clearly shows that replacing E by -E is equivalent to replacing q by -q. That is, an antiparticle is a particle with the same energy, but with the opposite sign of charge.
2. The wave equation has a fundamental solution in the form of the sum of two oppositely propagating waves in the form of F1 (ωt - kx) + F2 (ωt + kx), where replacing ω by -ω means only the changed direction of propagation, and not the antiparticle.
There are many such confusions in the historical legacy of physics. There is also a physical quantity called force, but having a dimension of energy, but everyone knows that EMF is energy, the difference of potentials. :)
It is easy to see all the evidence that we have. The Universe is made of duality.
The question is:
Where the wave is coming from? How the space of universe is holding wave? As we know it is very easy to prove 1=2 in math does it make right?
To find source or at least predict it is more important that flat formula.
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