[FPSPACE] Vacuum Energy: Myths and Reality

[LARRY KLAES]

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, abstract
gr-qc/0604062

From: Grigory Volovik [view email]

Date (v1): Fri, 14 Apr 2006 15:59:09 GMT (77kb)
Date (revised v2): Sun, 16 Apr 2006 10:14:46 GMT (77kb)

Vacuum Energy: Myths and Reality

Authors: G.E. Volovik

Comments: 20 pages, 2 figures, prepared for the special issue of Int. J. 
Mod. Phys. devoted to dark energy and dark matter, IJMP style

Subj-class: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology; Statistical Mechanics

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.

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0604062