Related papers: Fluctuations in the Quantum Vacuum
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…
The concept of work is basic for statistical thermodynamics. To gain a fuller understanding of work and its (quantum) features, it needs to be represented as an average of a fluctuating quantity. Here I focus on the work done between two…
Quantum fluctuation of unstable modes about gravitational instantons causes the instability of flat space at finite temperature, leading to the spontaneous process of nucleating quantum black holes. The density of vacuum energy-gain in such…
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
The standard formulation of the cosmological constant problem is based on one critical assumption---the spacetime is homogeneous and isotropic, which is true only on cosmological scales. However, this problem is caused by extremely small…
Quantum gravity may remove classical space-time singularities and thus reveal what a universe at and before the big bang could be like. In loop quantum cosmology, an exactly solvable model is available which allows one to address precise…
Spacetime is foamy due to quantum fluctuations. Various gedanken experiments show that distances fluctuate by amounts consistent with the holographic principle, hence the name "holographic quantum foam" (HQF). One important prediction of…
The evidence for a Big Bang origin of the Universe is truly compelling, though its cause remains a complete mystery. As the cosmic spacetime is revealed to us with ever improving detail, however, we are beginning to refine the range of its…
We study quantum measurements of temporal equilibrium fluctuations in macroscopic quantum systems. It is shown that the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, as a relation between observed quantities, is partially violated in quantum systems,…
Quantum cosmology offers a unique stage to address questions of time related to its underlying (and perhaps truly quantum dynamical) meaning as well as its origin. Some of these issues can be analyzed with a general scheme of quantum…
Loop quantum cosmology provides an efficient framework to study the evolution of the Universe beyond the classical Big Bang paradigm. Because of holonomy corrections, the singularity is replaced by a "bounce". The dynamics of the background…
We investigate a conformal invariant gravitational model which is taken to hold at pre-inflationary era. The conformal invariance allows to make a dynamical distinction between the two unit systems (or conformal frames) usually used in…
The process of quantum creation of a qusihomogeneous inflationary universe near a cosmological singularity is considered. It is shown that during the evolution quantum fluctuations of spatial topologies increase and the universe acquires…
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…
Coherent states consist of superposition of infinite number of particles and do not have a classical analogue. We study their evolution in a FLRW cosmology and show that only when full quantum corrections are considered, they may survive…
The observational evidence for the recent acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of cosmology and particle physics are incomplete---if not incorrect---and that new physics is out there, waiting to be discovered. A…
Quantum decoherence can arise due to classical fluctuations in the parameters which define the dynamics of the system. In this case decoherence, and complementary noise, is manifest when data from repeated measurement trials are combined.…
It is shown that the vacuum state of weakly interacting quantum field theories can be described, in the Heisenberg picture, as a linear combination of randomly distributed incoherent paths that obey classical equations of motion with…
The existence of vacuum fluctuations leads to reconsider the question of relativity of motion. The present article is devoted to this aim with a main line which can be formulated as follows: ``The principle of relativity of motion is…
We address two basic issues in the theory of galaxy formation from fluctuations of quantum fields: 1) the nature and origin of noise and fluctuations and 2) the conditions for using a classical stochastic equation for their description. On…