Related papers: Vacuum Energy as Spectral Geometry
We point out that modern brane theories suffer from a severe vacuum energy problem. To be specific, the Casimir energy associated with the matter fields confined to the brane, is stemming from the one and the same localization mechanism…
We argue that calculating vacuum energy requires quantum field theory whose axioms are adapted to curved spacetime. In this context, we suggest that non-zero vacuum energy is connected to dynamical breaking of electroweak symmetry. The…
The Casimir energy corresponding to a massive scalar field with Dirichlet boundary conditions on a spherical bag is obtained. The field is considered, separately, inside and outside the bag. The renormalization procedure that is necessary…
Casimir energy in presence of a weak gravitational field is discussed taking into account the issues related to energy and its conservation in a curved background. It is well-known that there are inherent difficulties in defining energy in…
Quantum liquids, in which an effective Lorentzian metric and thus some kind of gravity gradually arise in the low-energy corner, are the objects where the problems related to the quantum vacuum can be investigated in detail. In particular,…
A dynamical system with discrete time is studied by means of algebraic geometry. The system admits a reduction that is interpreted as a classical field theory in 2+1-dimensional wholly discrete space-time. The integrals of motion of a…
The vacuum energy of a conformally coupled scalar field on the d-dimensional sphere is calculated. On even spheres it is zero and on odd spheres it oscillates in sign. Results for the d-torus and d-cube are also given.
In 1+3 (threading) formulation of general relativity spacetime behaves analogous to a medium with a specific index of refraction with respect to the light propagation. Accepting the reality of zero point energy, through the equivalence…
Zero-point fluctuations in quantum fields give rise to observable forces between material bodies, the so-called Casimir forces. In this lecture I present some results of the theory of the Casimir effect, primarily formulated in terms of…
We study the Casimir problem as the limit of a conventional quantum field theory coupled to a smooth background. The Casimir energy diverges in the limit that the background forces the field to vanish on a surface. We show that this…
The cosmological constant (vacuum energy) problem is analyzed within the scope of quantum theories with UV-cut-off or fundamental length. Various cases associated with the appearance of the latter are considered both using the Generalized…
The vacuum expectation value of the stress energy tensor for a massive scalar field with arbitrary coupling in flat spaces with non-trivial topology is discussed. We calculate the Casimir energy in these spaces employing the recently…
We reformulate the problem of the cancellation of the ultraviolet divergencies of the vacuum energy, particularly important at the cosmological level, in terms of a saturation of spectral function sum rules which leads to a set of…
Standard cosmology poses a number of important questions. Apart from its singular origin, it possesses early and late accelerating phases required to account for observations. The vacuum energy has been considered as a possible way to…
The primary focus of this dissertation is the study of the Casimir effect and the possibility that this phenomenon may serve as a mechanism to mediate higher dimensional stability, and also as a possible mechanism for creating a small but…
This communication concerns the structure of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum in a disclinated insulator. It is shown that a nonzero vacuum energy density appears when the rotational symmetry of a continuous insulating elastic medium is…
We calculate the Casimir energy at spherical cavities within a host made up of an arbitrary material described by a possibly dispersive and lossy dielectric response. To that end, we add to the coherent optical response a contribution that…
Vacuum polarization (or Casimir) energies can be straightforwardly computed from scattering data for static field configurations whose interactions with the fluctuating field are frequency independent. In effective theories, however,such…
We study the backreaction of free quantum fields on a flat Robertson-Walker spacetime. Apart from renormalization freedom, the vacuum energy receives contributions from both the trace anomaly and the thermal nature of the quantum state. The…
We discuss the weight of vacuum energy in various contexts. First, we compute the vacuum energy for flat spacetimes of the form $\mathbb{T}^3 \times \mathbb{R}$, where $\mathbb{T}^3$ stands for a general 3-torus. We discover a quite simple…