Exploring the Possibility of Vacuum Energy as Dark Energy: A Scientific Inquiry

[71STARS]

"Dark Energy" per se can be summed up as not existing simply because "Dark Matter" when it is in an overabundance state will naturally nudge galaxies apart. That does not imply energy. That is merely an accumulation of the unseen mass. When the cause of Dark Matter can be determined, the functions will show that an overabundance of this unseen mass is the reason for any distance fluctuation in galaxies (or suns and planets). The timeframe would be sooooo small, but simply a natural process. Yes, this is stictly my opinion. And yes, Einsteins cosmological constant can be equated to the term "Dark Matter" although he did not think in those terms.

 

[bapowell]

Einstein's cosmological constant in no way behaves like dark matter. Dark energy and dark matter are logically (and physically) independent concepts.

 

[mikejr82]

according to special relativity mass and energy are equivalent so because vacuum energy has mass so it should exert a gravitational force on matter . so , why can't dark energy be simply vacuum energy ?

This is something that has intrigued me for a while. When a matter and anti-matter colide,they destroy each other in a massive burst of energy.(cassimir effect).
Is it possible that these collisions create space between objects?
I believe this would better explain the expansion of the universe and how galaxies collide even tho everything in the universe is supposed to be moving away from each other.
No one has figured out how to calculate the true force generated by vacuum energy.

 

[twofish-quant]

This is something that has intrigued me for a while. When a matter and anti-matter colide,they destroy each other in a massive burst of energy.(cassimir effect).
Is it possible that these collisions create space between objects?

Casmir effect is something different, and no matter-antimatter collisions don't create unusual amounts of space. Anti-matter is something that gets produced in particle accelerators all of the time, and people use anti-matter routinely for brain and heart scans (google for positron emission tomography).

No one has figured out how to calculate the true force generated by vacuum energy.

They have actually, it's not a hard calculation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

 

[twofish-quant]

I think General Relativity should be modified and the current theory is merely an approximation.

So do a lot of other people. The astrophysics database search for modified gravity has about 10000 hits

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/basic_connect?qsearch=modified+gravity

The problem is not just saying "let's modify GR." The hard part is to say "if you modified GR in this way, then you will get observations that do or don't match what we see."

Also one way that physicists thinks instead of talking about *one* possible modification to GR, what you do is to try to classify all possible modifications to GR in several groups and then try to knock them over.

 

[bapowell]

No one has figured out how to calculate the true force generated by vacuum energy.

Why do you say this? Also, why do you think your suggestion better explains the expansion of space than the Friedmann solution? Have you worked out the relevant quantities in your theory: expansion rate, redshift relations, age of the universe, etc? Can you fit supernova, CMB, and large scale structure data with your idea?