https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23631550-600-dark-energy-is-mutating-with-grave-consequences-for-the-cosmos/
This is interesting and a bit disturbing. Phantom energy means the vacuum
energy density is increasing with time. This means that not only is the
universe accelerating the acceleration itself is increasing. With ordinary
dark energy the quantum vacuum energy is constant which gives an
exponential rule for the time dependent separation of two test masses
(galaxies) is exponential, but it asymptotes. There is some time in the
future where the rate of separation diverges. With exponential expansion
things gravitationally bound, such as galaxies, experience no increase in a
force pulling them apart. With phantom energy that does happen. In fact
towards the end stellar systems of planets get torn apart, then the stars
and planet. then atoms, then hadrons are pulled apart into a plasma of
quarks and gluons and ... it hits a gravitational singularity called the
big rip. Everything is snuffed out of existence.
What is disturbing about these data is it implies this has been going on
very noticeably during the past history of the cosmos. So the quantum
vacuum has been changing through the last 10 or more billion years. That is
what is most unsettling. It implies something very odd is going on with
quantum mechanics that frankly makes no sense. Certainly the contribution
to the vacuum energy of the universe can't be due to some change in known
quantum fields. The fine structure constant α = e^2/ħc ~ 1/137.0, for e the
electric charge ħ the Planck unit of action and c the speed of light, is
measured from distant atomic transitions is galaxies and no change is
observed. If there were changes to the QCD vacuum energy this would be seen
in changes in the mass of protons and nuclei. No such thing is observed,
for this too would impact atomic transitions in atoms in distant galaxies.
Before going into more physics there is the lighter disturbing element to
this in that it appears Schopenhauer may not have been half baked when he
said we life in the worst of all possible worlds. This was a sort of
anti-Liebnitzian stance he had. In my philosophy classes I couldn't stand
Schopenhauer; I always groaned when he came up. I always thought he was a
clinically depressed nut who took too long at getting around to his
suicide. A phantom universe is not different than any other; no matter what
type of universe you exist in you are doomed. Well, except for the steady
State cosmology that is empirically ruled out. However, with phantom energy
you are not only doomed, but it is coming a whole lot sooner.
I think the universe consists of only one electron, and only one type of
neutrino, and one photon and one up quark with r and b charge and ... . The
reason why we see so many of them is they careen between the early universe
with inflationary expansion where the vacuum energy is enormous, and they
careen off the future vacuum energy where again it is enormous. The tiny
cosmological constant we observe is bounded in time by two huge vacuum
energies. So a type of elementary particle, say an electron, cycles back
and forth in time appearing as an electron here when going forwards in
time, an anti-electron there when going backwards in time after being
deflected by the future big rip singularity and appears as an electron
somewhere else. So the electrons running in the wires of my computer are
all the same, and the same as electrons in a white dwarf star exerting
degenerate pressure, a positron generated near a black hole, or an electron
being ejected by a hot star.
This is potentially my solution to the whole problem of the 123 orders of
magnitude issue with the quantum vacuum. Quantum fields are modeled as
harmonic oscillators. The pendulum with small swing is a classical case.
However, quantum mechanically a zero-swinging pendulum (a plumb bob) has an
uncertainty in its position so it has some swing --- no matter how much you
try to get rid of it. If you sum over all possible frequencies quantum
fields give this zero point energy, or quantum vacuum, that has 10^{123}
times what would determine the cosmological constant. This is a big
outstanding problem. It might just be this huge vacuum does exist, but it
exists not locally in time, but at the very beginning and the end.
So there is opportunity here, but it does ultimately mean we are DOOMED!
LC
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