"All our theories today seem to imply that the universe should contain a tremendous concentration of energy, even in the emptiest regions of space. The gravitational effects of this so-called vacuum energy would have either quickly curled up the universe long ago or expanded it too much greater size. The Standard Model cannot help us understand this puzzle, called the cosmological constant problem".
Gordon Kane, The Dawn of Physics beyond the Standard Model, Scientific American, 2006
http://particle-theory.physics.lsa.umich.edu/kane/Kane5p.pdf
Dear Adeshola
Maybe you are right, but there are many physicists that are trying to describe quantum vacuum, they think it helps to solve quantum gravity.
Interesting! I'm inclined to suggest that if one uses field theory, and/or if one accepts the massless nature of photons, then EM energy can travel quite happily in a vacuum, and that's where the energy in free space comes from.
If instead you must postulate that photons have mass, then there is no vacuum. Vacuum is fiction, in such cases.
Dear Albert
I agree with you that photons have mass.
Consider that quantum vacuum does not mean vacuum is empty.
Other than photon there is not energy in the vacuum?
It is due to minuscule amount of residual and virtual particles in space since there is no known perfect vacuum in the Observable Universe.
Dear Anthony
I know it, you are right.
What is the source of these virtual particles?
This approach helps us to solve quantum gravity problem.
My humble submission is that vacuum is wrongly classified as empty space. Vacuum may be void in terms of mass but optimal for stored energy.
Everything was nothing before becoming something. Everything comes from and goes back to space (nothingness). Vacuum is space and is made up of stored energy.
The source of the vacuum energy is nothingness!
Dear Adeshola
Maybe you are right, but there are many physicists that are trying to describe quantum vacuum, they think it helps to solve quantum gravity.
Hossein, okay, so you are differentiating between vacuum and quantum vacuum. A vacuum, the old fashioned kind, is a region of space with no massive particles, and that's what I was responding to. If we go by either field theory, or we assume massless photons (and also massless gravitons), then it is clear where energy comes from, in a REGULAR vacuum. E=hf exists happily in a vacuum. (And, if you say that photons have mass, then EM radiation cannot exist in a regular vacuum, so the answer is that vacuum energy cannot exist. No part of the known universe is free of EM radiation, even if just the residue from the big bang, so no part of the universe can be a vacuum.)
But now you ask about "quantum vacuum." A quantum vacuum is where all fields and particles are at "ground state." But not so simplistic, actually more like "net zero." The quantum vacuum appears to be an attempt to explain how something can come from nothing, such as the big bang. So what the concept claims to be the case is, the quantum vacuum is actually full of electric and magnetic fields, BUT these fields are both positive and negative energy, and they cancel out. However, the fields can become mass. The positive energy becomes matter, the negative energy becomes dark matter.
So, here are my two answers. If you are asking about a normal vacuum, the first paragraph. If you are asking about a quantum vacuum, then that energy always existed, and it was merely in a state where positive and negative energy cancelled out. When it transformed into mass, matter and dark matter emerged.
Dear Albert
In CPH Theory, the not only photon has mass, even graviton has mass. Gravitons interact with each other and produce virtual photons.
Generalization of the Dirac's Equation and Sea
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303988070_Generalization_of_the_Dirac's_Equation_and_Sea
Virtual particles are thought to be mediators of some particle interactions although their physical properties are yet to be confirmed empirically.
Dear Anthony
Yes, in fact, virtual photon plays the role of force carrier.
Dear Hossein Javadi
As you certainly know, we call vacuum energy the "background energy" in the Universe, the so-called zero-point energy. The origin of this concept refers to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle involving energy and time, ie, an uncertainty relation for time and energy quite similar to the one for position and linear momentum. This particular formulation of the uncertainty principle states that the position and linear momentum of a quantum particle can not be measured simultaneously with high precision and that there is a minimum value for the product of the uncertainties of these two correlated measures. In the same way there is a minimum for the product of the uncertainties corresponding to the energy and time associated with a quantum physical measurement. It is important to note that these statements do not originate from the inherent inaccuracy of experimental instruments and methods of measuring physical phenomena. These statements are a "natural" consequence of the wave nature associated with physical phenomena. And the presence of uncertainties is not exclusively associated with quantum phenomena. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle in special is a statement of the wave nature of quantum particles. Your question, of course, is associated, I think, with a question that hangs in the minds of some: is zero-point energy a real quantity? Or, is zero-point energy physical? (see Annals Phys. 383 (2017) 181-1950.) Another interesting question: is the zero-point energy a source of the cosmological constant? For some authors, zero-point energy is unphysical. Spectral line widths, the Lamb shift and the Casimir effect are generally accepted to be observable consequences of the zero-point electromagnetic fields (see Mod.Phys.Lett A32 (2017) no.40, 1750217
(2017-12-11). So my answer to your question is: vacuum energy comes from vacuum quantum fluctuations and creation of virtual quantum pair of particles and anti-particles.
Dear C.A.Z. Vasconcellos
Thank you for explaining. I think we can describe Zero Point Energy without using uncertainty principle.
Review and analyzing the evidence of the existence of quantum fluctuations
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312586008_Review_and_analyzing_the_evidence_of_the_existence_of_quantum_fluctuations
Hi, in this case you are not describing classical fluctuations? I feel confusing if you say you do not need to consider Heisenberg Principle quantum fluctuations to describe the quantum vacuum. Heisenberg principle states the essence of the quantum world. Without taking into account this principle you have no way to describe correctly and consistently the quantum vacuum.
C.A.Z. Vasconcellos
No dear, I have generalized Maxwell equation from electromagnetism to gravity, see the article in my last comment.
No, photon-graviton interaction:
Article Generalization of the Dirac's Equation and Sea
Thanks for the clarification Hossein. But I cannot conceive a quantum theory without taking into account the Heisenberg Principle. It is the essence of quantum reality.
Our living space is a field. Vacuum is synonym for a flat field. A flat field can contain vibrations that do not deform this field. Such vibrations are waves and one-dimensional shock fronts. One-dimensional shock fronts carry a standard amount of energy but something must generate these pulse responses. Without those actuators the vacuum does not contain energy.
There is not such a think like vacuum or empty space, that's all.
The concept of vacuum is another ill defined concept in modern Physics.
The vacuums (at least in space between the stars) have gravitational effects.
Hi, Hossein
Of course. If you take for instance the predictions of pc-GR (pseudo-complex General Relativity, Hess and Greiner), vacuum fluctuations are the source of repulsive gravitational effects and mimic the presence of dark energy. This is not my point. My point is: I cannot conceive a quantum theory without taking into account the Heisenberg Principle. It is the essence of quantum reality.
Dear C.A.Z. Vasconcellos
I do not want to disagree with your opinion.
Because at the quantum level, without the uncertainty principle physical phenomena cannot be described.
But when new questions in quantum mechanics are not answered, we should pass from quantum scale to sub-quantum level.
Well at the sub-quantum level the Heisenberg Principle continue to work what may change for instance is the contextualization of the Exclusion Principle (for instance in quarks and gluons level).
Dear C.A.Z. Vasconcellos
No, sub-quantum energy is able to describe the Quarks and Gluons very well.
From the viewpoint of the Orbital Model of elementary particles, free space can be seen as an a-energetic electromagnetic field. You may look at it as a field formed by photons without energy. Photons are seen as quantum electric dipoles. When these dipoles are vibrating they are in an energy state, but when they are not vibrating they are thus in an a-energetic state. Conventionally they are then called virtual photons or vacuum quanta. The concept of a-energetic quanta is here taken as a much fundamental premise.
It is known that the disintegration of photons generates a pair of opposite electric charges, in diverse quantum states such as the electron quantum state (e+ and e-), the muon (+ and -) quantum state, etc. The breakdown of a photon into a pair of opposite electric charges requires a minimum energy of 1.02 MeV, energy which corresponds to the bonding energy of its structural electric dipole.
Let us now consider the opposite process, i.e. the formation of a photon from the bonding of two opposite electric charges. In getting bonded into the photon quantum state, an energy of 1.02 MeV is released, energy corresponding to their bonding strength. Let us point out that the resultant photon can be in an energetic state if its structural dipole is vibrating, as well as in an a-energetic state if its structural dipole is not vibrating (vacuum quanta).
The question is then: where has gone all the energy of 1.02 MeV released throughout the structural bonding of each photon? Part of this energy is stored in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Another part has gone into the material component of the Cosmos. So, our Universe can be conceived as composed of three parts: (1) an a-energetic electromagnetic field (that we have called “the primordial matrix” or the “cosmic a-energetic background”: CAB), (2) an energetic electromagnetic field constituted by the Cosmic Microwave Background (which can be seen as an excited state of the primordial matrix), and (3) the material part of the Cosmos (seen as a further excitation level of the primordial matrix).
Those interested in this viewpoint may get further information in the following links:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301585930_Space_this_great_unknown
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320426305_Experimental_set-up_for_the_detection_of_de-energized_photons
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/1998821_Fundamentals_of_the_Orbital_Conception_of_Elementary_Particles_and_of_Their_Application_to_the_Neutron_and_Nuclear_Structure
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Heisenberg's third uncertainty relation sets a limit on principle of energy conservation: for a time interval short enough energy is not conserved. This is the vacuum energy we know in physics presently. Other interpretations are not officially accepted by the scientific community.
According to quantum mechanics an entity's wave-function is collapsed when it is "observed". When it is not "observed", where is mass gone? (in "empty space" ???) Is there any gravitational effect caused by this unobserved entity? (YES)
To SB: You say: “for a time interval short enough energy is not conserved. This is the vacuum energy we know in physics presently”.
This is effectively the current accepted interpretation, derived by Heisenberg. However it does not explain the source itself of the energy, it just stipulates that within a very short time the energy conservation may not be preserved. In other words, it only says that the energy can very ephemerally pop up from the quantum vacuum. This does not explain the factual source of the vacuum energ. Its local conservationless for very short lapses of time is another issue. Energy itself and energy short-lived fluctuation should not be confused.
You also say: “other interpretations are not officially accepted by the scientific community”.
Conformism is the enemy of progress.
Further insights at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323358466_The_cosmic_a-energetic_background_CAB
Greetings Hossein!
Kindly permit me to ask the great minds here to share their thoughts on the mysterious particles called Tachyons...
Please watch the video from the link below:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/255375278692509/permalink/293808081515895/?sfnsn=mo
Dear Hossein Javadi
With God’s help, I wrote a paper that shows that the vacuum energy is just an illusion and that it is, in fact, coming from matter itself through its motion when it disappears and appears (when it did its quantum jump, and this is the main idea in In my theory "universal quantum jump" I mean that the motion is discontinuous).
The idea is simple when a particle moves from one position to another through disappearance and appearance, it is according to theoretical calculations must be that the velocity of its jump is much greater than the speed of light (but always the apparent velocity or the mean velocity is less than the speed of light), and therefore the particle much precedes the electromagnetic waves that come from it (in the case we were talking about electromagnetic energy) and thus these waves will reach it later, so it will be affected by it as if it comes from the vacuum, but in fact, it comes from itself directly before its jump! this, for example, leads us to the Lamb shift.
For more information please see this paper:
Preprint On The Origin of Vacuum Energy
With best regards.
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