Related papers: Vacuum Energy
The action for gravity and the standard model includes, as well as the positive energy fermion and boson fields, negative energy fields. The Hamiltonian for the action leads through a positive and negative energy symmetry of the vacuum to a…
The origins of the cosmological constant are discussed from the perspective of the imaginary-time field theory. The concept of the thermal time, which is related to the Tolman-Ehrehfest relation, and the conformal invariance of the actions…
We investigate the gravitational property of the quantum vacuum by treating its large energy density predicted by quantum field theory seriously and assuming that it does gravitate to obey the equivalence principle of general relativity. We…
The phenomenon of emergent physics in condensed-matter many-body systems has become the paradigm of modern physics, and can probably also be applied to high-energy physics and cosmology. This encouraging fact comes from the universal…
I argue that a solution to the cosmological constant problem is to assume that the expectation value of the quantum vacuum stress-energy tensor is proportional to the metric tensor with a negative energy density and positive pressure. This…
We discuss phenomenology of quantum vacuum. Phenomenology of macroscopic systems has three sources: thermodynamics, topology and symmetry. Momentum space topology determines the universality classes of fermionic vacua. The vacuum in its…
Recent LHC results concerning the mass of the Higgs boson indicate that the vacuum in our Universe may be unstable. We analyze properties of unstable vacuum states from the point of view of the quantum theory of unstable states. From the…
Nearly seventy per cent of the energy density in the universe is unclustered and exerts negative pressure. This conclusion -- now supported by numerous observations -- poses the greatest challenge for theoretical physics today. I discuss…
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…
We abandon the interpretation that time is a global parameter in quantum mechanics, replace it by a quantum dynamical variable playing the role of time. This operational re-interpretation of time provides a solution to the cosmological…
A precise zeta-function calculation shows that the contribution of the vacuum energy to the observed value of the cosmological constant can possibly have the desired order of magnitude albeit the sign strongly depends on the topology of the…
For more seventy years physicists have appreciated that Nature's vacuum is far from empty. The discovery of the Lamb shift in Hydrogen provided dramatic verification of the reality of the quantum vacuum. The advent of gauge theories has led…
The concordance model of cosmology suffers from the major theoretical problems surrounding the observed value and recent emergence of a cosmological constant. In this paper we present a novel approach, which explains more naturally its…
In 1+3 (threading) formulation of general relativity spacetime behaves analogous to a medium with a specific index of refraction with respect to the light propagation. Accepting the reality of zero point energy, through the equivalence…
In many interesting models, including superstring theories, a negative vacuum energy is predicted. Although this effect is usually regarded as undesirable from a cosmological point of view, we show that this can be the basis for a new…
It will be argued here that the cosmological constant problem exists because of the way the vacuum is defined in quantum field theory. It has been known for some time that for QFT to be gauge invariant certain terms--such as part of the…
There are now two cosmological constant problems: (i) why the vacuum energy is so small and (ii) why it comes to dominate at about the epoch of galaxy formation. Anthropic selection appears to be the only approach that can naturally resolve…
An oldish question is resurrected concerning the significance of the ambiguous `b-type' terms encountered in calculations of the vacuum, Casimir energy on the Einstein Universe for conformally coupled scalar fields. Some remarks in the…
We reconsider the quantum vacuum interaction energy between two straight parallel cosmic strings. This problem was discussed several times in an approach treating both strings perturbatively and treating only one perturbatively. Here we…
The early cosmic inflation, when taken along with the recent observations that the universe is currently dominated by a low density vacuum energy, leads to at least two potential problems which modern cosmology must address. First, there is…