2021/07/08 by Iver Brevik, Brevik, Iver
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #General Physics (physics.gen-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #hep-th #physics.gen-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2108.04671
5 pages
arxiv created 2021/07/08 · arxiv updated 2021/08/11
The ether concept -- abandoned for a long time but reinstated by Dirac in 1951-1953 -- has in recent years emerged into a fashionable subject in theoretical physics, now usually with the name of the Einstein-Dirac ether. It means that one special inertial frame is singled out, as the "rest frame". What is emphasized in the present note, is that the idea is a natural example of the covariant theory of quantum electrodynamics in media if the refractive index is set equal to unity. A treatise on this case of quantum electrodynamics was given by the present author back in 1971, published then only within a preprint series. The present version is a brief summary of that formalism, with a link to the original paper. We think it is one of the first treatises on modern ether theory.