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vacuum energy - does its ammount vary under gravitational influence ?
ok, vacuum energy thought of to be the direct result of dark energy being present in our universe has been veryfied (as far as i remember) by putting to metal plates at a small distance to each other, measuring the diference of such fluctuations between both plates and the outside, as a force.
(was it called casimir-effect ?)
Now i think .. does this ammount vary under gravitational influence of some sort, and if so can you give any numbers to it ?
anyone tried the experiment on the ISS for example ?
any numbers at all to get an imagination about how strong the effect is ?
ah, and i don't mean what might happens if i use a vacuum cleaner onboard the ISS :P
3 Answers
- cosmoLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
The Casimir effect is a purely quantum electrodynamical effect, due to the zero-state energy of the electromagnetic field.
It's true that to calculate the magnitude of this observed effect, it is necessary to re-normalize the energy of the electromagnetic field, and that re-normalization is a nasty process that may or may not be connected with vacuum energy. But I don't think this tells you anything real about the Dark Energy, and I don't think it is connected in any serious way with gravity.
Most of these statements are really statements about our lack of a unified theory of physics. So doing the experiments you propose may be of interest. I suspect, however, that the Casimir effect will not change in any observable way between Earth's gravitational field and a free-falling frame.
- CirricLv 71 decade ago
Hi. You ask great questions. Gravity is inescapable. Only the intensity can change. The strongest gravity occurs near an event horizon, and the gravity field is most curved near a MINIMUM mass black hole. Under these conditions virtual particles pop into and out of existence at the fastest rate. A larger percentage of particles could, therefore, influence (or be influenced by) the plates. So my answer is Yes, but I have no way to quantify this.
- 1 decade ago
Let me take it this way that when you talking of vaccum energy you actualy referring to dark matter and (or) dark energy.
Truth is Yes. Dark matter as well as energy responds to Gravity but that phenomena is slighly different than usual gravitational pull.
For details please refer to String theory. in String theory, strings are of two types: open ended strings and closed ended strings. Closed ended strings represents gravitational effects.
