Related papers: Is the physical vacuum a preferred frame ?
It is commonly agreed that the electromagnetic vacuum is not empty but filled with virtual photons. This leads to effects like Lamb shift and spontaneous emission. Here we argue that if the vacuum has virtual photons it might mean that it…
A remarkable feature of atomic ground states is that they are observed to be radiationless in nature, despite (from a classical viewpoint) typically involving charged particles in accelerated motions. The simple hydrogen atom is a case in…
The total momentum of a thermodynamically closed system is unique, as is the total energy. Nevertheless, there is continuing confusion concerning the correct form of the momentum and the energy-momentum tensor for an electromagnetic field…
In a collision of strongly coupled quantum matter we find that the dynamics of the collision produces regions where a local rest frame cannot be defined because the energy-momentum tensor does not have a real time-like eigenvector. This…
This paper inspects more closely the problem of the momentum and energy of a bound (non-radiating) electromagnetic (EM) field. It has been shown that for an isolated system of non-relativistic mechanically free charged particles a…
The idea of a `condensed' vacuum state is generally accepted in modern elementary particle physics. We argue that this should motivate a new generation of precise `ether-drift' experiments with present-day technology.
The standard model of elementary particle physics and the theory of general relativity can be extended by the introduction of a vacuum variable which is responsible for the near vanishing of the present cosmological constant (vacuum energy…
It is argued that: 1) Quantum Mechanics implies the preferred frame also because of the collapse delayed at detection, 2) forthcoming experiments with moving beam-splitters will allow us to decide between Preferred Frame and…
Special theory of relativity has been formulated in a vacuum momentum-energy representation which is equivalent to Einstein special relativity and predicts just the same results as it. Although in this sense such a formulation would be at…
First the "frame problem" is sketched: the motion of an isolated particle obeys a simple law in galilean frames, but how does the galilean character of the frame manifest itself at the place of the particle? A description of vacuum as a…
We consider the multiverse in the intrinsically quantum mechanical framework recently proposed in Refs. [1,2]. By requiring that the principles of quantum mechanics are universally valid and that physical predictions do not depend on the…
The concept of a particle is ambiguous in quantum field theory. It is generally agreed that particles depend not only on spacetime, but also on coordinates used to parametrise spacetime points. One of us has in contrast proposed a…
This article summarizes our recent efforts to understand spontaneous quantum vacuum forces and torques, which require that a stationary object be out of thermal equilibrium with the blackbody background radiation. We proceed by a systematic…
A simple gravitational model with torsion is studied, and it is suggested that it could explain the dark matter and dark energy in the universe. It can be reinterpreted as a model using the Einstein gravitational equations where spacetime…
The vacuum is considered as some fluid emergent from the zero-point fluctuations of the quantum fields contributing to the vacuum energy density and pressure. The equation of vacuum state and the speed of vacuum sound-waves are deduced…
The gravitational field of a moving point particle is obtained in a Lorentz covariant form for both uncharged and charged cases. It is shown that the general relativistic proper time interval at the location of the particle is the same as…
Mach's principle applied to rotation can be correct if one takes into account the rotation of the quantum vacuum together with the Universe. Whether one can detect the rotation of the vacuum or not depends on its properties. If the vacuum…
We give physical explanations of explicit invariant expressions for the energy and angular momentum densities of gravitational fields in stationary space-times. These expressions involve non-locally defined conformal factors. In certain…
We show how a simple calculation leads to the surprising result that an excited two-level atom moving through vacuum sees a tiny friction force of first order in v/c. At first sight this seems to be in obvious contradiction to other…
There appears to be three, perhaps related, ways of approaching the nature of vacuum energy . The first is to say that it is just the lowest energy state of a given, usually quantum, system. The second is to equate vacuum energy with the…