Related papers: Dilution of zero point energies in the cosmologica…
The notion of vacuum fluctuations of the gravitational field plays important role in cosmology. The strong variable gravitational field of the very early Universe amplifies these fluctuations and transforms them into macroscopical…
We show that, due to the nonlinear nature of gravity, fluctuations in spacetime curvature generate additional gravitational attraction. This fluctuation-induced extra attraction was overlooked in the conventional understanding of the…
The principles of General Relativity allow for a non-vanishing cosmological constant, which can possibly be interpreted at least partially in terms of quantum-fluctuations of matter fields. Depending on sign and magnitude it can cause…
In the Hamiltonian formulation of General Relativity the energy associated to an asymptotically flat space-time with metric $g_{\mu\nu}$ is related to the Hamiltonian $H_{GR}$ by $E=H_{GR}[g_{\mu\nu}]-H_{\rm GR}[\eta_{\mu\nu}]$, where the…
When the vacuum fluctuation pressure is calculated directly from fundamental principles of quantum field theory, in the same manner as vacuum fluctuation energy density is commonly calculated, one finds it is not equal to the negative of…
Based on some observations, the apparent energy, associated with gravity, of vacuums is defined, with that of normal vacuums to be zero and that of the vacuums losing some energy to be negative. An important application of the energy is its…
Astronomical observations indicate an accelerated cosmic expansion, the cause of which is explained by the action of `dark energy'. Here we show that in discrete expanding space-time, only a tiny fraction of the vacuum fluctuations can…
It is suggested that the vacuum expectation of the quantum vacuum energy-momentum is zero, but quantum fluctuations give rise to a space-time curvature equivalent to that of a cosmological constant or dark energy. Calculations within…
The behavior of the gravitating vacuum energy density in an expanding universe is discussed. A scenario is presented with a step-wise relaxation of the vacuum energy density. The vacuum energy density moves from plateau to plateau and…
By example of a model with a spatially global scalar field, we show that the energy density of zero-point modes is exponentially suppressed by an average number of field quanta in a finite volume with respect to the energy density in the…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
The existence of irreducible field fluctuations in vacuum is an important prediction of quantum theory. These fluctuations have many observable consequences, like the Casimir effect which is now measured with good accuracy and agreement…
Modern astronomical observations in cosmology provide increasingly strong evidence that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. Explanations of the cosmic acceleration within the framework of general relativity use the hypothesis…
In a recent paper (Phys. Rev. D95, 103504 (2017)) it is argued that, due to the fluctuations around its mean value, vacuum energy gravitates differently from what previously assumed. As a consequence, the universe would accelerate with a…
Quantum fluctuations impose fundamental limits on measurement and space-time probing. Although using optimised probe fields can allow to push sensitivity in a position measurement beyond the "standard quantum limit", quantum fluctuations of…
In order to clarify why the zero-point energy associated with the vacuum fluctuations cannot be a candidate for the dark energy in the universe, a comparison with the Casimir effect is analyzed in some detail. A principle of epistemology is…
Whereas the total energy in zero-point fluctuations of the particle physics vacuum gives rise to the cosmological constant problem, differences in the vacuum give rise to real physical phenomena, such as the Casimir effect. Hence we…
A huge discrepancy between the zero-point energy calculated from quantum theory and the observed quantity in the Universe has been one of the most illusive problems in physics. In order to examine the measurability of zero-point energy, we…
It is argued that the zero-point energies of free quantum fields diverge at most quadratically and not quartically, as is generally believed. This is a consequence of the relativistic invariance which requires that the energy density of the…
We discuss how we remove a huge discrepancy between the theory of a cosmological constant, due to the zero-point energies of matter fields, and the observation. The technique of dimensional regularization plays a decisive role. We…