Related papers: Quantum Vacuum Structure and Cosmology
We present the foundations of a new emerging interpretation of quantum theory bearing wide-range implications. Physical basis of the interpretation is non-questionable yet relatively new--it relies on the different structures…
This is an essay sketching the line of thinking which has led the present author to propose the constituent or atomic model of gravitation more than a decade ago. It turns out that viewing the problem of gravitation as a quantum many body…
Current theories of particle physics lead to the unavoidable conclusion that there must have been several phase transitions in the early universe. Further, in the context of these theories, it is possible that cosmological phase transitions…
In this article we address the mystery of dark matter. We expound the various evidences, astrophysical and cosmological, leading to hypothesize the existence of an invisible form of matter, whose attempts at detecting it have so far all…
The vacuum condensate due to neutrino and quark mixing behaves as a perfect fluid and, at the present epoch, as a cosmological constant. The very small breaking of the Lorentz invariance constrains today the value of the dark energy.
One of the main goals of contemporary theoretical physics is to find the quantum theory of gravity. There are various working hypotheses, mostly operating in the regime of high-energy physics well above the reach of particle accelerators.…
A program was recently initiated to bridge the gap between the Planck scale physics described by loop quantum gravity and the familiar low energy world. We illustrate the conceptual problems and their solutions through a toy model: quantum…
While astrophysical and cosmological probes provide a remarkably precise and consistent picture of the quantity and general properties of dark matter, its fundamental nature remains one of the most significant open questions in physics.…
Revolutionary advances in both theory and technology have launched cosmology into its most exciting period of discovery yet. Unanticipated components of the universe have been identified, promising ideas for understanding the basic features…
We review work in areas ranging from condensed matter physics to quantum gravity, with the following interconnected questions in mind: (i) what is the nature of the vacuum in condensed matter systems, in quantum field theory, and in…
Vacuum energy in quantum field theory, being the sum of zero-point energies of all field modes, is formally infinite but yet, after regularization or renormalization, can give rise to finite observable effects. One way of understanding how…
Cosmology is entering a very exciting time in its history, when a wealth of cutting-edge experiments are all starting to collect data, or about to. These experiments aim at addressing some of the most intriguing questions in fundamental…
Quantum vacuum energy (Casimir energy) is reviewed for a mathematical audience as a topic in spectral theory. Then some one-dimensional systems are solved exactly, in terms of closed classical paths and periodic orbits. The relations among…
The vacuum is the lowest energy state of a field in a certain region of space. This definition implies that no particles can be present in the vacuum state. In classical physics, the only features of vacuum are those of its geometry. For…
The fact that the energy densities of dark energy and matter are similar currently, known as the coincidence problem, is one of the main unsolved problems of cosmology. We present here a model in which a spatial curvature of the universe…
In this brief review, we examine the theoretical consistency and viability of phantom dark energy. Almost all data sets from cosmological probes are compatible with dark energy of the phantom variety (i.e., equation-of-state parameter…
We generalize the quantum "pigeonhole paradox" to quantum paradoxes involving arbitrary types of particle relations, including orderings, functions and graphs.
From a macroscopic theory of the quantum vacuum in terms of conserved relativistic charges (generically denoted by q^{(a)} with label a), we have obtained, in the low-energy limit, a particular type of f(R) model relevant to cosmology. The…
Despite their tremendous successes, modern-day cosmology and particle physics harbor a variety of unresolved mysteries. Two of the biggest are the origin of the baryon asymmetry of the Universe and the existence and nature of dark matter.…
All experimental evidence {indicates} that the vacuum is not void, but filled with something truly quantum. This is reflected by terms such as {zero-point} fluctuations, and Dirac's sea of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs, and last but…