  We use the hydrogen atom's bound state electron as a probe and investigate
the consequences inflicted by time-resolved vacuum effects. Explicitly, we
derive a closed form for the time-dependent modification of the Maxwell
equations emanating from vacuum fluctuations in quantum electrodynamics. As a
consequence, we find a non-vanishing probability that the corresponding
hydrogen ground state can be excited through interactions with fermionic
currents that are entailed in the vacuum state.
