Search results for "Vacuum energy"
showing 10 items of 13 documents
Why the Cosmological Constant Seems to Hardly Care About Quantum Vacuum Fluctuations: Surprises From Background Independent Coarse Graining
2020
International audience; Background Independence is a sine qua non for every satisfactory theory of Quantum Gravity. In particular if one tries to establish a corresponding notion of Wilsonian renormalization, or coarse graining, it presents a major conceptual and technical difficulty usually. In this paper we adopt the approach of the gravitational Effective Average Action and demonstrate that generically coarse graining in Quantum Gravity and in standard field theories on a non-dynamical spacetime are profoundly different. By means of a concrete example, which in connection with the cosmological constant problem is also interesting in its own right, we show that the surprising and sometime…
Cosmology with self-adjusting vacuum energy density from a renormalization group fixed point
2001
Cosmologies with a time dependent Newton constant and cosmological constant are investigated. The scale dependence of $G$ and $\Lambda$ is governed by a set of renormalization group equations which is coupled to Einstein's equation in a consistent way. The existence of an infrared attractive renormalization group fixed point is postulated, and the cosmological implications of this assumption are explored. It turns out that in the late Universe the vacuum energy density is automatically adjusted so as to equal precisely the matter energy density, and that the deceleration parameter approaches $q = -1/4$. This scenario might explain the data from recent observations of high redshift type Ia S…
Vacuum energy densities of a field in a cavity with a mobile boundary
2015
We consider the zero-point field fluctuations, and the related field energy densities, inside a one-dimensional and a three-dimensional cavity with a mobile wall. The mechanical degrees of freedom of the mobile wall are described quantum mechanically and they are fully included in the overall system dynamics. In this optomechanical system, the field and the wall can interact with each other through the radiation pressure on the wall, given by the photons inside the cavity or even by vacuum fluctuations. We consider two cases: the one-dimensional electromagnetic field and the three-dimensional scalar field, and use the Green's functions formalism, which allows extension of the results obtain…
Cosmological Applications of Extended Electromagnetism
2013
Extended electromagnetism (EE) has been applied to cosmology in various papers. In all of them, the zero order energy density of the EE vector field plays the same role as vacuum energy. Perturbations of this field have been studied by using different approaches. Firstly, some basic equations and ideas are summarized and, then, the CMBFAST code is used to calculate the cosmic microwave background angular power spectrum for appropriate values of the EE parameters. Comparisons of the resulting spectra with a good observational one compatible with WMAP7 (Wilkinson map anisotropy probe 7 years data) seem to be promising. We are currently looking for a set of parameters leading to the best fitti…
N-quantum approach to quantum field theory at finite T and mu: the NJL model
1999
We extend the N-quantum approach to quantum field theory to finite temperature ($T$) and chemical potential ($\mu$) and apply it to the NJL model. In this approach the Heisenberg fields are expressed using the Haag expansion while temperature and chemical potential are introduced simultaneously through a generalized Bogoliubov transformation. Known mean field results are recovered using only the first term in the Haag expansion. In addition, we find that at finite T and in the broken symmetry phase of the model the mean field approximation can not diagonalize the Hamiltonian. Inclusion of scalar and axial vector diquark channels in the SU(2)$_{rm f}$ $otimes$ SU(3)$_{\rm c}$ version of the …
Spontaneous creation of circularly polarized photons in chiral astrophysical systems
2020
This work establishes a relation between chiral anomalies in curved spacetimes and the radiative content of the gravitational field. In particular, we show that a flux of circularly polarized gravitational waves triggers the spontaneous creation of photons with net circular polarization from the quantum vacuum. Using waveform catalogues we identify precessing binary black holes as astrophysical configurations that emit such gravitational radiation, and then solve the fully non-linear Einstein's equations with numerical relativity to evaluate the net effect. The quantum amplitude for a merger is comparable to the Hawking emission rate of the final black hole, and small to be directly observe…
Dispersion Interactions between Neutral Atoms and the Quantum Electrodynamical Vacuum
2018
Dispersion interactions are long-range interactions between neutral ground-state atoms or molecules, or polarizable bodies in general, due to their common interaction with the quantum electromagnetic field. They arise from the exchange of virtual photons between the atoms, and, in the case of three or more atoms, are not additive. In this review, after having introduced the relevant coupling schemes and effective Hamiltonians, as well as properties of the vacuum fluctuations, we~outline the main properties of dispersion interactions, both in the nonretarded (van der Waals) and retarded (Casimir--Polder) regime. We then discuss their deep relation with the existence of the vacuum fluctuation…
Entropy signature of the running cosmological constant
2007
Renormalization group (RG) improved cosmologies based upon a RG trajectory of Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) with realistic parameter values are investigated using a system of cosmological evolution equations which allows for an unrestricted energy exchange between the vacuum and the matter sector. It is demonstrated that the scale dependence of the gravitational parameters, the cosmological constant in particular, leads to an entropy production in the matter system. The picture emerges that the Universe started out from a state of vanishing entropy, and that the radiation entropy observed today is essentially due to the coarse graining (RG flow) in the quantum gravity sector which is relat…
Entropy Production during Asymptotically Safe Inflation
2011
The Asymptotic Safety scenario predicts that the deep ultraviolet of Quantum Einstein Gravity is governed by a nontrivial renormalization group fixed point. Analyzing its implications for cosmology using renormalization group improved Einstein equations we find that it can give rise to a phase of inflationary expansion in the early Universe. Inflation is a pure quantum effect here and requires no inflaton field. It is driven by the cosmological constant and ends automatically when the renormalization group evolution has reduced the vacuum energy to the level of the matter energy density. The quantum gravity effects also provide a natural mechanism for the generation of entropy. It could eas…
A Version of Jung’s Synchronicity in the Event of Correlation of Mental Processes in the Past and the Future: Possible Role of Quantum Entanglement i…
2012
This paper deals with the version of Jung’s synchronicity in which correlation between mental processes of two different persons takes place not just in the case when at a certain moment of time the subjects are located at a distance from each other, but also in the case when both persons are alternately (and sequentially, one after the other) located in the same point of space. In this case, a certain period of time lapses between manifestation of mental process in one person and manifestation of mental process in the other person. Transmission of information from one person to the other via classical communication channel is ruled out. The author proposes a hypothesis, whereby such manife…