Related papers: The Minkowski quantum vacuum does not gravitate
We use a field theoretic generalization of the Wigner-Weisskopf method to study the stability of the Bunch-Davies vacuum state for a massless, conformally coupled interacting test field in de Sitter space. We find that in $\lambda \phi^4$…
We present a (hopefully) novel calculation of the vacuum energy in expanding FLRW spacetimes based on the renormalization of quantum field theory in non-zero backgrounds. We compute the renormalized effective action up to the $2-$point…
We address the gravitation and inertia in the framework of 'general gauge principle', which accounts for 'gravitation gauge group' generated by hidden local internal symmetry implemented on the flat space. We connect this group to nonlinear…
We study gravity coupled to a cosmological constant and a scale but not conformally invariant sector. In Minkowski vacuum, scale invariance is spontaneously broken. We consider small fluctuations around the Minkowski vacuum. At the…
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…
We consider a massive scalar field living on the recently found exact quantum space-time corresponding to vacuum spherically symmetric loop quantum gravity. The discreteness of the quantum space time naturally regularizes the scalar field,…
We analyze the phase space of gravity non-minimally coupled to a scalar field in a generic local Lorentz frame. We reduce the set of constraints to a first-class one by fixing a specific hypersurfaces in the phase space. The main issue of…
We construct a quadratic curvature theory of gravity whose graviton propagator around the Minkowski background respects wordline inversion symmetry, the particle approximation to modular invariance in string theory. This symmetry…
We study the energy density and pressure of a relativistic thermal gas of massless fermions on four-dimensional Minkowski and anti-de Sitter space-times using relativistic kinetic theory. The corresponding quantum field theory quantities…
In this essay I point out that, in the context of semi-classical gravity, the equivalence principle can mitigate the cosmological constant problem. On a Minkowski space-time background with the usual $\mathbb{R}^4$ topology, the vacuum…
The general thermodynamic analysis of the quantum vacuum, which is based on our knowledge of the vacua in condensed-matter systems, is consistent with the Einstein earlier view on the cosmological constant. In the equilibrium Universes 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…
We reconsider the Rovelli-Smolin model of gravity coupled to the Klein-Gordon time field with an eye towards capturing the degrees of freedom of the scalar field lost in the framework in which time is deparametrized by the scalar field.…
We consider the correspondence between solutions of non-gravitational field theories formulated in Euclidean space-time and Minkowski space-time. Infinitely many "Euclidean" spaces can be obtained from M4 via a group of transformations in…
General relativity is a non-linear theory with the distinguishing feature that gravitational field energy also acts as gravitational charge density. In the well-known Schwarzschild solution describing field of an isolated massive body at…
We study a free scalar field $\phi$ in a fixed curved background spacetime subject to a higher derivative field equation of the form $F(\Box)\phi =0$, where $F$ is a polynomial of the form $F(\Box)= \prod_i (\Box-m_i^2)$ and all masses…
We show that free $\kappa$-Minkowski space field theory is equivalent to a relativistically invariant, non local, free field theory on Minkowski space-time. The field theory we obtain has in spectrum a relativistic mode of arbitrary mass…
A possible connection between the energy W of the vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields and gravity in "empty space" is conjectured in this paper using a natural cutoff of high momenta with the help of the gravitational radius of the vacuum…
We propose that the solution to the cosmological vacuum energy puzzle may come from the infrared sector of the effective theory of gravity, where the impact of the trace anomaly is of upmost relevance. We proceed by introducing two…
The renormalization of the vacuum energy in quantum field theory (QFT) is usually plagued with theoretical conundrums related not only with the renormalization procedure itself, but also with the fact that the final result leads usually to…