A new cosmological model based on quantization of the zero-point field

The accelerating expansion of the Universe points to a small positive vacuum energy density and negative vacuum pressure. A strong candidate is the cosmological constant in Einstein's equations of general relativity. Possible contributions are zero-point energies and the condensates associated with spontaneous symmetry breaking. The vacuum energy density extracted from astrophysics is 1056 times smaller than the value expected from quantum fields and standard model particle physics. Is the vacuum energy density time dependent? We give an introduction to the cosmological constant puzzle and ideas how to solve it.

The Introduction presents the rationale for choosing the topics discussed in this paper, which are believed to be deeply linked to the author's hypotheses. The Discussion and Conclusions section discusses the topics of Artificial Intelligence, the Standard Model of Particle Physics, and Order in Quantum Chaos, which, in addition to demonstrating the desired connections, are topics that spark significant debate in the academic world. With regard to Artificial Intelligence and considering what has been discussed, the author believes that, in terms of speed and creativity in solving and presenting solutions to the problems proposed, there seems to be no doubt that AIs will be able to surpass humans in virtually all aspects that may be presented for comparison. As for whether or not they will be able to acquire consciousness, his opinion is that yes; this possibility can be considered real but still remote, depending on whether AIs can access or have knowledge of a possible “process” that, according to the author, enables the human brain to receive and give meaning to the information it receives from the surrounding environment. He believes that, with the increase in its complexity, AIs would become increasingly able to access this “process,” whose mechanism has not yet been discovered. The explanation given for the divergence that was discussed with the focus on the Genetic Model of the Atom may imply its validation and, considering the argument used in its development, it seems to be proven that a transmission of information occurred - that is, a transmission of meaningful signals which could only occur between two cognitive entities - which seems to imply the existence of a Primary Universal Consciousness. In the author's opinion, confirmation of the above assumptions could lead to a profound change in the way physics approaches its research, making it more organic. Taking into account the various ideas contained in the models and theories discussed and considering the genetic groups that emerged in the development of the Genetic Model of the Atom, it is suggested that the composition of the graviton particle is given by the genetic group “nmt,” composed of the three neutrinos that are supposed to exist; that is, the electron, muon, and tau neutrinos. It is also suggested that the composition of the photon would be that of the genetic group “emt,” composed of an electron and the muon and tau neutrinos, with the photon appearing to have this composition due to the expulsion by the electron of the electron neutrino from the composition of the graviton. Concluding the topic on the Standard Model of Physics, the author briefly describes his ideas about the beginning and evolution of the universe. He proposes that the absolute vacuum, being unstable, transformed into a quantum vacuum: a dynamic system where energy fluctuation allows the emergence of particle-antiparticle pairs. This vacuum is viewed not merely as an energy reservoir, but as the substrate of the Primary Universal Consciousness. Through Poincaré Resonances, information flows from the quantum field to the material world, collapsing the wave function and allowing matter to organize according to the proposed Genetic Model. In addressing Order in Quantum Chaos, experimental results are shown that prove the existence of order which, obeying the laws of thermodynamics, allows irreversible entropic dissipative processes responsible for the emergence of life. Ultimately, this work concludes that the Genetic Model of the Atom provides a plausible explanation for the symmetry breaking observed in Strontium-73 and Bromine-73 isotopes, with minimal relative errors (0.2% to 2.0%). The numerical convergence between the 64 proposed genetic groups and the 64 predicted fundamental particles suggests that the universe follows an informational code analogous to biological DNA. This transition to an "Organic Physics" integrates AIs, human consciousness, and thermodynamics into a single framework, where the validation of graviton (nmt) and photon (emt) compositions paves the way for the unification of Gravity and Electromagnetism as transmissions of meaningful signals within a Universal Consciousness.

We discuss other contributions to the vacuum energy of quantum field theories and quantum gravity, which have not been considered in the literature. As is well known, the presence of virtual particles in vacuum provides the so famous and puzzling contributions to the vacuum energy. In fact, these mainly come from loop integrations over the four-momenta space. However, we argue that these also imply the presence of a mass density of virtual particles in every volume cell of space-time. The most important contribution comes from quantum gravity bubbles, corresponding to virtual black hole pairs. The presence of virtual masses could lead to another paradox: the space-time itself would have an intrinsic virtual mass density contribution leading to a disastrous contraction —as is known, no negative masses exist in general relativity. We dub this effect the cosmological problem of second type: if not other counter-terms existed, the vacuum energy would be inevitably destabilized by virtual-mass contributions. It would be conceivable that the cosmological problem of second type could solve the first one. Virtual masses renormalize the vacuum energy to an unpredicted parameter, as in the renormalization procedure of the Standard Model charges. In the limit of (Pauli-Villars limit), virtual black holes have a mass density providing an infinite counter-term to the vacuum energy divergent contribution (assuming ). Therefore, in the same Schwinger-Feynman-Tomonaga attitude, the problem of a divergent vacuum energy could be analogous to the put-by-hand procedure used for Standard Model parameters.

We consider the vacuum energy of massive quantum fields in an expanding universe. We define a conserved renormalized energy-momentum tensor by means of a comoving cutoff regularization. Using exact solutions for de Sitter space-time, we show that in a certain range of mass and renormalization scales there is a contribution to the vacuum energy density that scales as nonrelativistic matter and that such a contribution becomes dominant at late times. By means of the WKB approximation, we find that these results can be extended to arbitrary Robertson-Walker geometries. We study the range of parameters in which the vacuum energy density would be compatible with current limits on dark matter abundance. Finally, by calculating the vacuum energy in a perturbed Robertson-Walker background, we obtain the speed of sound of density perturbations and show that the vacuum energy density contrast can grow on sub-Hubble scales as in standard cold dark matter scenarios.

The problem of defining the vacuum energy and pressure of quantized fields in the static Einstein universe is considered. A regularization procedure which utilizes a wavelength cutoff in the mode sum is discussed and applied to the cases of the massive conformally coupled scalar field, the electromagnetic field, and the neutrino field. In all cases a positive vacuum energy density and pressure are obtained. In the case of the massive scalar field it is possible for the vacuum pressure to exceed the vacuum energy density, thus violating the dominant energy condition. For the electromagnetic and neutrino fields the energy density and pressure are of the form $\ensuremath{\rho}=\ensuremath{\gamma}\overline{h}\frac{c}{{a}^{4}}$ and $P=\frac{\ensuremath{\rho}}{3}$, respectively, where $\ensuremath{\gamma}=\frac{11}{240{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{2}}$ for the electromagnetic field and $\ensuremath{\gamma}=\frac{17}{1920{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{2}}$ for the neutrino field, and where $a$ is the radius of the universe.

An Eötvös experiment to test the weak equivalenceprinciple (WEP) for zero-point vacuum energy is proposed using asatellite. Following the suggestion of Ross for a terrestrialexperiment of this type, the acceleration of a spherical testmass of aluminium would be compared with that of a similar testmass made from another material. The estimated ratio of thezero-point vacuum energy density inside the aluminium sphere tothe rest mass energy density is ~1.6×10-14,which would allow a 1% resolution of a potential WEP violationobserved in a satellite mission test that had a baselinesensitivity to WEP violations of ~10-16. An observedviolation of the WEP for vacuum energy density would constitutea significant clue as to the origin of the cosmological constantand the source of dark energy, and test a recently proposedresolution of the cosmological constant problem, based on amodel of nonlocal quantum gravity and quantum field theory.

In the Hamiltonian formulation of General Relativity the energy associated to an asymptotically flat space-time with metric $g_{\mu\nu}$ is related to the Hamiltonian $H_{GR}$ by $E=H_{GR}[g_{\mu\nu}]-H_{\rm GR}[\eta_{\mu\nu}]$, where the subtraction of the flat-space contribution is necessary to get rid of an otherwise divergent boundary term. This classic result indicates that the energy associated to flat space does not gravitate. We apply the same principle to study the effect of zero-point fluctuations of quantum fields in cosmology, proposing that their contribution to the cosmic expansion is obtained computing the vacuum energy of quantum fields in a FRW space-time with Hubble parameter $H(t)$ and subtracting from it the flat-space contribution. [...] After renormalization, this produces a renormalized vacuum energy density $\sim M^2H^2(t)$, where $M$ is the scale where quantum gravity sets is, so for $M$ of order of the Planck mass a vacuum energy density of the order of the critical density can be obtained without any fine tuning. The counterterms can be chosen so that the renormalized energy density and pressure satisfy $p=w\rho$, with $w$ a parameter that can be fixed by comparison to the observed value, so in particular one can chose $w=-1$. An energy density evolving in time as $H^2(t)$ is however observationally excluded as an explanation for the dominant dark energy component which is responsible for the observed acceleration of the universe. We rather propose that zero-point vacuum fluctuations provide a new subdominant "dark" contribution to the cosmic expansion that, for a UV scale $M$ slightly smaller than the Planck mass, is consistent with existing limits and potentially detectable.

We have shown in recent papers (see Fahr, 2023, Fahr and Heyl, 2023) that the original explosion of the universe cannot have had its origin in a mass singularity of relativistically superhot cosmic matter, since the associated extremely strong centripetal gravitational field would clearly have impeded the Big-Bang to happen. As we suggest instead, the so called paradigmatic "Big-Bang", if it at all ever happened, must rather be caused by something like a positively pressurized primordial cosmic vacuum, but not by a singularity-condensed cosmic matter. The question, however, then is, how a cosmic vacuum in physical terms has to be constituted that drives the initial explosion of the universe as expected into a Hubble – expansion, and, while doing so, in addition generates that amount of cosmic matter which in the present days of our universe evidently is all around us and thus needs to have its non-singular origin later in the evolution of the universe? As we do show here in this article, this requires a positively pressurized vacuum with pvac = pvac (εvac) ≥ 0 and a vacuum energy density εvac that, while performing thermodynamic work at the expansion of the universe, decreases with the increase of the scale R of the universe. This, however, is different to the well known ΛCDM -model with a constant vacuum energy density which is presently in favour. On the basis of the general energy conservation law we do formulate a relation here, that describes the condensation of quantized energy structures in form of elementary masses out of the energized vacuum. While the relative energy density of vacuum-condensed masses ρm/ρvac is permanently increasing with world time t, the energy density of the vacuum itself permanently decreases. In this paper we look for solutions which on the basis of these procedures just lead to the structures which evidently appear in our present-day universe. Not yet solved, though touched by us in this paper here, is the question whether or not the elementary abundances of the condensed cosmic matter under these conditions also would match the astrophysical observations

Cosmic strings are generic cosmological predictions of many extensions of the standard model of particle physics, such as a $U(1{)}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ symmetry-breaking phase transition in the early Universe or remnants of superstring theory. Unlike other topological defects, cosmic strings can reach a scaling regime that maintains a small fixed fraction of the total energy density of the Universe from a very early epoch until today. If present, they will oscillate and generate gravitational waves with a frequency spectrum that imprints the dominant sources of total cosmic energy density throughout the history of the Universe. We demonstrate that current and future gravitational wave detectors, such as LIGO and LISA, could be capable of measuring the frequency spectrum of gravitational waves from cosmic strings and discerning the energy composition of the Universe at times well before primordial nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background where standard cosmology has yet to be tested. This work establishes a benchmark case that gravitational waves may provide an unprecedented, powerful tool for probing the evolutionary history of the very early Universe.

Four lectures on Big Bang cosmology, including microwave background radiation, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, dark matter, inflation, and baryogenesis.

In his 2005 review, Gravity and the Thermodynamics of Horizons, Paddy suggested that a vacuum in thermal equilibrium with a bath of radiation should have a gradually diminishing energy. We work through the consequences of this scenario, and find that a coupling between the vacuum and a bath of black-body radiation at the temperature of the horizon requires the Hubble rate, H, to approach the same type of evolution as in the “intermediate inflation” scenario, with \(H\propto t^{-1/3}\), rather than as a constant. We show that such behaviour does not conflict with observations when the vacuum energy is described by a slowly-rolling scalar field, and when the fluctuations in the scalar field are treated as in the “warm inflation” scenario. It does, however, change the asymptotic states of the universe. We find that the existence of the radiation introduces a curvature singularity at early times, where the energy densities in both the radiation and the vacuum diverge. Furthermore, we show that the introduction of an additional non-interacting perfect fluid into the space-time reveals that radiation can dominate over dust at late times, in contrast to what occurs in the standard cosmological model. Such a coupling can also lead to a negative vacuum energy becoming positive.

The physical understanding of the real mechanism of gravity is one of the most important questions in Physics. As we have already shown in a previous paper, the rest and relativistic mass of an elementary particle or body can be considered as having their origin in the diminished energy density of a Quantum Vacuum, characterized by a granular structure quantized through a Planck metric. The presence of massive bodies, from the scale of elementary particles to that of stellar objects and black holes, then determines Quantum Vacuum energy density gradients. In this paper we have proposed a novel physical model in which gravity is generated by the pressure of Quantum Vacuum in the direction of its own higher to lower density due to the presence of material objects or particles. In this picture gravity is an immediate and not – propagating action – at – a – distance interaction, resulting from the Quantum Vacuum dynamics, in turn related to fundamental properties of space itself only, not requiring the existence of the hypothetical graviton. Furthermore, the possibility to consider this Quantum Vacuum as a Bose – Einstein like condensate allows us to recover the large – scale description of the Universe consistent with General Relativity, viewed as the long – wavelength geometro – hydrodynamic limit of the Quantum Vacuum dynamics. The proposed model is also able to give a very simple explanation of: the equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass, the origin and dynamical behavior of dark matter and dark energy, the physical meaning of singularity in black hole, as well as to overcome some of the main difficulties of the Higgs model. Finally this model of gravity can be used as a starting point for a novel interpretation of the recently published data of BICEP2 radio telescope about the presumed indirect observation of gravitational wave

The last decades have witnessed an unprecedented advancement in our knowledge of the large scale universe. In particular, increasingly accurate cosmological observations have allowed us to discover a form of "dark energy", which presently dominates the expansion of the universe -making it accelerated. On the other hand, fundamental problems in the standard (CDM) cosmological model point towards the possibility of a primordial inflationary period. Both these expansion phases have in common the fact that they should be governed by forms of energy with properties much similar to those of vacuum energy of classical or quantum fields. In the meanwhile, quantum field theory in curved spaces (QFTCS) has proved a rich framework to analyze phenomena of a quantum nature in regimes where spacetime curvature is relevant, but not too extreme, and, particularly, it yields novel insights on the structure and dynamics of quantum vacuum. In this dissertation, we make a thorough exposition of the fundamentals of QFTCS and present some of its applications in cosmological spacetimes. Particular attention is given to the construction of an empirical notion of particles through an idealized model of particle detectors, and to the phenomenon of particle creation in expanding FLRW spacetimes. Further, we develop the procedure of adiabatic renormalization, and use it to compute the renormalized stress tensor in these spacetimes. For a noninteracting scalar field in exponentially expanding (de Sitter) spaces, we find that these results take the form of a cosmological constant, although a quantitatively self-consistent value with the background expansion can only be found at Planckian densities. We also present a construction of a simple inflationary model, driven by a self-interacting classical scalar field, and show how the quantized fluctuations of this field could give rise to a nearly scale-invariant power spectrum, like the one that is currently observed in the Cosmic Microwave Background.

Perfectly conducting boundaries, and their Dirichlet counterparts for quantum scalar fields, predict nonintegrable energy densities. A more realistic model with a finite ultraviolet cutoff yields two inconsistent values for the force on a curved or edged boundary (the ``pressure anomaly''). A still more realistic, but still easily calculable, model replaces the hard wall by a power-law potential; because it involves no a posteriori modification of the formulas calculated from the theory, this model should be anomaly free. Here we first set up the formalism and notation for the quantization of a scalar field in the background of a planar soft wall, and we approximate the reduced Green function in perturbative and WKB limits (the latter being appropriate when either the mode frequency or the depth into the wall is sufficiently large). Then we display numerical calculations of the energy density and pressure for the region outside the wall, which show that the pressure anomaly does not occur there. Calculations inside the wall are postponed to later papers, which must tackle the regularization and renormalization of divergences induced by the potential in the bulk region.

A cosmological model that admits barotropic fluid distribution and a negative energy massless scalar creation field as a source in the presence of bulk viscosity and vacuum energy (Λ) in Friedmann–Robertson–Walker space–time is investigated. It has been shown that the model satisfies observational tests and is thus an alternative to the standard Big Bang model. The model is free from real singularity and particle horizon. The creation field increases with time, which matches Hoyle and Narlikar (Proc. Roy. Soc. A, 282, 178 (1964). doi:10.1098/rspa.1964.0225 ). To get the deterministic results, we have assumed that the coefficient of bulk viscosity, ζαρ1/2, where ρ is the matter density, ρ = 3H2, Λ ∼ H2, where H is the Hubble parameter. The model satisfies the energy conditions (weak, dominant, and strong). The deceleration parameter, q < 0, shows that the model represents an accelerating phase of the universe.