Abstract
Motivated by recent works on the origin of inertial mass, we revisit the relationship between the mass of charged particles and zero-point electromagnetic fields. To this end we first introduce a simple model comprising a scalar field coupled to stochastic or thermal electromagnetic fields. Then we check if it is possible to start from a zero bare mass in the renormalization process and express the finite physical mass in terms of a cut-off. In scalar QED this is indeed possible, except for the problem-that all conceivable cut-offs correspond to very large masses. For spin-1/2 particles (QED with fermions) the relation between bare mass and renormalized mass is compatible with the observed electron mass and with. a finite cut-off, but only if the bare mass is not zero; for any value of the cut-off the radiative correction is very small.