Brownian motion in Robertson-Walker spacetimes from electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations

We consider the effects of the vacuum fluctuations of a quantized electromagnetic field on particles in an expanding universe. We find that these particles typically undergo Brownian motion and acquire a nonzero mean squared velocity that depends on the scale factor of the universe. This Brownian motion can be interpreted as due to noncancellation of anticorrelated vacuum fluctuations in the time-dependent background spacetime. Alternatively, one can interpret this effect as the particles acquiring energy from the background spacetime geometry, a phenomenon that cannot occur in a static spacetime. We treat several types of coupling between the electromagnetic field and the particles and several model universes. We also consider both free particles, which, on the average, move on geodesics, and particles in bound systems. There are significant differences between these two cases, which illustrates that nongeodesic motion alters the effects of the vacuum fluctuations. We discuss the possible applications of this Brownian motion effect to cosmological scenarios. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3133946]