QED makes predictions about the polarization density of the vacuum based on the presence of virtual e-p pairs, which has a screening effect on the bare charge of the electron (which is infinite). My question is this: the virtual electrons and positrons in the vacuum should have charges corresponding to the "unscreened" charges of the electron and positron, which is infinite. Is this correct? I'm assuming this is related to renormalization, which I have not studied in QFT yet. Nevertheless I'm confused why it seems that the virtual e-p pairs are generally treated as though they have the screened values of the e-p charges.
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