Related papers: Is the Free Vacuum Energy Infinite?
We first review the cosmological constant problem, and then mention a conjecture of Feynman according to which the general relativistic theory of gravity should be reformulated in such a way that energy does not couple to gravity. We point…
It has been demonstrated that quantum vacuum energy gravitates according to the equivalence principle, at least for the finite Casimir energies associated with perfectly conducting parallel plates. We here add further support to this…
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…
We consider a universe with a compact extra dimension and a cosmological constant emerging from a suitable ultraviolet cutoff on the zero point energy of the vacuum. We derive the Casimir force between parallel conducting plates as a…
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…
Unknown short-distance effects cancel the quartic divergence of the zero-point energies. If this renormalization took effect in the early universe after the last phase transition and applied only to modes whose wavelengths (over 2 pi) were…
The vacuum energies corresponding to massive Dirac fields with the boundary conditions of the MIT bag model are obtained. The calculations are done with the fields occupying the regions inside and outside the bag, separately. The…
Casimir forces are conventionally computed by analyzing the effects of boundary conditions on a fluctuating quantum field. Although this analysis provides a clean and calculationally tractable idealization, it does not always accurately…
We compute the expectations of the squares of the electric and magnetic fields in the vacuum region outside a half-space filled with a uniform dispersive dielectric. We find a positive energy density of the electromagnetic field which…
In the study of quantum vacuum energy and the Casimir effect, it is desirable to model the conductor by a potential of the form $V(z)=z^\alpha$. This "soft wall" model was proposed so as to avoid the violation of the principle of virtual…
It is pointed out that quantum vacuum fluctuations may give rise to a curvature of space-time equivalent to the curvature currently attributed to dark energy. A simple calculation is made, which suggests that the value of the dark energy…
The failure to calculate the vacuum energy is a central problem in theoretical physics. Presumably the problem arises from the insistent use of effective field theory reasoning in a context that is well beyond its intended scope. If one…
The Casimir problem is usually posed as the response of a fluctuating quantum field to externally imposed boundary conditions. In reality, however, no interaction is strong enough to enforce a boundary condition on all frequencies of a…
We develop a non-conventional description of the vacuum energy in quantum field theory in terms of quantum entropy. Precisely, we show that the vacuum energy of any non-interacting quantum field at zero temperature is proportional to the…
One of the very first applications of the quantum field theoretic vacuum state was in the development of the notion of Casimir energy. Now field theoretic Casimir energies, considered individually, are always infinite. But differences in…
A diverse set of observations now compellingly suggest that Universe possesses a nonzero cosmological constant. In the context of quantum-field theory a cosmological constant corresponds to the energy density of the vacuum, and the wanted…
The hypothesis is proposed that under the approximation that the quantum equations of motion reduce to the classical ones, the quantum vacuum also reduces to the classical vacuum--the empty space. The vacuum energy of QED is studied under…
A framework is suggested in which the energy integrals of the Friedmann cosmology are identified as genuine time-independent physical characteristics for both vacuum and non-vacuum forms of cosmic energy. The integrals are found to be…
The vacuum (Casimir) energy in quantum field theory is a problem relevant both to new nanotechnology devices and to dark energy in cosmology. The crucial question is the dependence of the energy on the system geometry under study. Despite…
We calculate the renormalized vacuum energy density for a massless scalar field confined between two nearby parallel plates formed by ideal uncharged conductors, placed very close to the surface of a rotating spherical gravitational source…