Wikipedia on "quantum harmonic oscillators" is confusing, but says this:
...the lowest achievable energy is not zero, but [\hbar\omega/2], which is called the "ground state energy" or zero-point energy. In the ground state, according to quantum mechanics, an oscillator performs null oscillations and its average kinetic energy is positive. It is not obvious that this is significant, because normally the zero of energy is not a physically meaningful quantity, only differences in energies. Nevertheless, the ground state energy has many implications, particularly in quantum gravity.
which seems to be about vibrations or oscillations as a factor in determining zero-point energy (or distinguishing it from "zero energy").
Surfing from that over to the zero-point energy entry, I find:
In quantum field theory, the fabric of space is visualized as consisting of fields, with the field at every point in space and time being a quantized simple harmonic oscillator, with neighboring oscillators interacting. In this case, one has a contribution of E={[\hbar\omega\over 2]} from every point in space, resulting in a technically infinite zero-point energy.
I'm not sure if "oscillation" and "vibration" are synonyms, but they seem like it. |
