Vacuum Energy: Myths and Reality
Apr, 2006Citations per year
Abstract: (arXiv)
We discuss the main myths related to the vacuum energy and cosmological constant, such as: ``unbearable lightness of space-time''/ the dominating contribution of zero point energy of quantum fields to the vacuum energy/ non-zero vacuum energy of the false vacuum/ dependence of the vacuum energy on the overall shift of energy/ the absolute value of energy only has significance for gravity/ the vacuum energy depends on the vacuum content/ cosmological constant changes after the phase transition/ zero-point energy of the vacuum between the plates in Casimir effect must gravitate, that is why the zero-point energy in the vacuum outside the plates must also gravitate/ etc. All these and some other conjectures appear to be wrong when one considers the thermodynamics of the ground state of the quantum many-body system, which mimics macroscopic thermodynamics of quantum vacuum. In particular, in spite of the ultraviolet divergence of the zero-point energy, the natural value of the vacuum energy is comparable with the observed dark energy. That is why the vacuum energy is the plausible candidate for the dark energy.- Cosmological constant
- dark energy
- zero-point energy
- vacuum state: energy state
- cosmological constant
- zero-point energy
- many-body problem
- gravitation
- effect: Casimir
- condensed matter
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