Related papers: Mass Dependence of Vacuum Energy
Considering the fundamental cutoff applied by the uncertainty relations' limit on virtual particles' frequency in the quantum vacuum, it is shown that the vacuum energy density is proportional to the inverse of the forth power of the…
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…
The problem of an enormously large energy density of the quantum vacuum is discussed in connection with the concept of renormalization of physical parameters in quantum field theory. Using the method of dimensional regularization, it is…
The regularized total Casimir energy in spacetimes with boundaries is not in general equal to the integral of the regularized energy density. This paradoxical phenomenon is most transparently analyzed in the simple example of a massless…
The condensed matter examples, in which the effective gravity appears in the low-energy corner as one of the collective modes of quantum vacuum, provide a possible answer to the question, why the vacuum energy is so small. This answer comes…
The quartic-divergent vacuum energy poses an ultraviolet (UV) challenge (the cosmological constant problem) in probing the nature of dark energy. Here we try to evaluate the contribution of the vacuum energy to dark energy with a method of…
The cosmological constant (vacuum energy) problem is analyzed within the scope of quantum theories with UV-cut-off or fundamental length. Various cases associated with the appearance of the latter are considered both using the Generalized…
A novel method for deriving energy conditions in stable field theories is described. In a local classical theory with one spatial dimension, a local energy condition always exists. For a relativistic field theory, one obtains the dominant…
In a recent paper [J. Math. Phys. 47 082303 (2006)], Quantum Energy Inequalities were used to place simple geometrical bounds on the energy densities of quantum fields in Minkowskian spacetime regions. Here, we refine this analysis for…
The imposition of boundary conditions upon a quantized field can lead to singular energy densities on the boundary. We treat the boundaries as quantum mechanical objects with a nonzero position uncertainty, and show that the singular energy…
The total energy of the ground state of the quantum harmonic oscillator is obtained with minimal assumptions. The vacuum energy density of the universe is derived and a cutoff frequency is obtained for the upper bound of the quantum…
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…
Energy in nuclear matter is, in practice, completely characterized at different densities and asymmetries, when the density dependencies of symmetry energy and of energy of symmetric matter are specified. The density dependence of the…
We revisit the cosmic evolution of the energy density of a quantized free scalar field and assess under what conditions the particle production and classical field approximations reproduce its correct value. Because the unrenormalized…
In quantum field theory it is generally known that the energy density may be negative at a given point in spacetime. A number of papers have shown that there is a restriction on this energy density which is called a quantum inequality (QI).…
The covariant regularization of the contributions of fundamental particles to the vacuum energy density is implemented in the Pauli-Villars, dimensional regularization, and Feynman regulator frameworks. Rules of correspondence between…
In classical physics the energy density of a field, such as the electromagnetic field, is always positive. However, in quantum field theory it has been shown that the energy density can be negative. There are restrictions, called the…
Although quintessence cosmologies seem to explain the amount of cosmological constant today, the required conditions are severe. For example, an extremely slowly varying and light scalar field that rolls toward the vanishing vacuum energy…
Quantum mechanics does not provide any ready recipe for defining energy density in space, since the energy and coordinate do not commute. To find a well-motivated energy density, we start from a possibly fundamental, relativistic…
It is considered constraints imposed by the quantum mechanics on the measurement of the density of the electromagnetic energy. First, the energy of the electromagnetic wave and the volume (time) are bound with the Heisenberg uncertainty…