Dirac sea

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The Dirac sea is a theoretical model of the electron vacuum as an infinite sea of electrons with negative energy, now called positrons. It was first postulated by the British physicist Paul Dirac in 1930^[1] to explain the anomalous negative-energy quantum states predicted by the Dirac equation for relativistic electrons (electrons traveling near the speed of light).^[2] The positron, the antimatter counterpart of the electron, was originally conceived of as a hole in the Dirac sea, before its experimental discovery in 1932.^{[nb 1]}

In hole theory, the solutions with negative time evolution factors^{[clarification needed]} are reinterpreted as representing the positron, discovered by Carl Anderson. The interpretation of this result requires a Dirac sea, showing that the Dirac equation is not merely a combination of special relativity and quantum mechanics, but it also implies that the number of particles cannot be conserved.^[3]

Dirac sea theory has been displaced by quantum field theory, though they are mathematically compatible.

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