Dark energy as vacuum fluctuations of photons?

[IM Egdall]

Interesting paper by physicist Bruno Deiss where he proposes a solution to cosmological constant problem.

 

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.5386v1.pdf

 

Problem: Vacuum fluctuations of quantum mechanics could account for the so-called dark energy which is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. But calculations say vacuum fluctuations are some 100 orders of magnitude too large.

 

Deiss Solution: Only virtual photons and maybe the lightest virtual neutrinos contribute gravitational effects - hence dark energy. In his model, all the other virtual particles in vacuum fluctuations do not contribute gravitationally. Only particles within a limited energy range interact. His calculations show this solves, at least in part, the mystery of the cosmological constant problem and dark energy.

 

There are a number of assumptions here, including that spacetime is discrete and that the expansion of space is quantized. Plus there are issues in his model with expansion before the era of recombination, unless yet to be found particles exist.

 

Even so, I thought it was a clever approach to solving this long unsolved problem. Any thoughts on this?

 

 

My website: http://www.marksmodernphysics.com/

Edited September 27, 2012 by IM Egdall