ZPEnergy.com - Void that is truly empty solves dark energy puzzle

by Rachel Courtland/ New Scientist - Physics & Math

EMPTY space may really be empty. Though quantum theory suggests that a vacuum should be fizzing with particle activity, it turns out that this paradoxical picture of nothingness may not be needed. A calmer view of the vacuum would also help resolve a nagging inconsistency with dark energy, the elusive force thought to be speeding up the expansion of the universe.

Quantum field theory tells us that short-lived pairs of particles and their antiparticles are constantly being created and destroyed in apparently empty space. A branch of the theory, called quantum chromodynamics (QCD) - which explains how gluons and quarks, the particles that make up protons and neutrons, behave - predicts that a vacuum should be awash with an interacting sea or "condensate" of quarks and gluons. This picture helps to explain how particles made of quarks get most of their mass.

This condensate carries energy, so it might be thought to be a candidate for the mysterious source of dark energy, which can be described by a parameter called the cosmological constant. The trouble is that when physicists use QCD to estimate the condensate's energy density, their calculations suggest it would pack a punch that is 1045 times the cosmological constant that we measure from observations of the universe's expansion...

Full article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727764.100-void-that-is-truly-empty-solves-dark-energy-puzzle.html


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