  A recently developed scheme [S. Scheel, L. Knoll, and D.-G. Welsch, Phys.
Rev. A 58, 700 (1998)] for quantizing the macroscopic electromagnetic field in
linear dispersive and absorbing dielectrics satisfying the Kramers-Kronig
relations is used to derive the quantum local-field correction for the standard
virtual-sphere-cavity model. The electric and magnetic local-field operators
are shown to be consistent with QED only if the polarization noise is fully
taken into account. It is shown that the polarization fluctuations in the local
field can dramatically change the spontaneous decay rate, compared with the
familiar result obtained from the classical local-field correction. In
particular, the spontaneous emission rate strongly depends on the radius of the
local-field virtual cavity.
