Alternative hypotheses regarding dark energy?

[R. E. Nettleton]

Currently, the favoured explanations for the accelerating expansion of the universe are the cosmological constant, and various scalar fields, most notably quintessence. All of these are mechanisms dependent on mathematical field properties.

My question is: do any alternative hypotheses exist which use more physical / exotic mechanisms, such as particles or spatial structures? How seriously are such propositions taken?

 

[Orodruin]

Why do you think fields are unphysical? It is what we use to describe everything else in physics. Particles are really not anything else than the quanta of excitations of different fields.

Until recently you might have argued that we have observed no fundamental scalar fields, but this is no longer true with the discovery of the Higgs (assuming that it is not composite).

 

[Justice Hunter]

I don't think there's any that are viable. A lot of folks tend to want to modify gravity, since space time needs to be quantized anyway, everyone to me seems to be leaning towards a revision of GR.

You might want to check out this paper thought
http://pubs.sciepub.com/ijp/3/2/2/

which I personally thought sounds like a good hypothesis to Dark Energy, and Dark Matter, If you interested in the discussion you can check out this thread
also :
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/zipfs-law-and-darkmatter.837875/

 

[phinds]

... since space time needs to be quantized anyway ...

Why?

 

[Justice Hunter]

Why?

I mean, I'm not sure why, i would imagine that those infinities we ignore that arise out of non-quantized systems are going to get overhauled eventually by some more profound field theory right?

Nima arkani, and Susskind, the two physicists i like to listen to the most, think space-time should be overhauled. more specifically Nima says that it could be an emergent thing rather then an actual thing. Dark energy being emergent as well just makes sense to me also. But that's speculation.

 

[phinds]

I mean, I'm not sure why, i would imagine that those infinities we ignore that arise out of non-quantized systems are going to get overhauled eventually by some more profound field theory right?

Nima arkani, and Susskind, the two physicists i like to listen to the most, think space-time should be overhauled. more specifically Nima says that it could be an emergent thing rather then an actual thing. Dark energy being emergent as well just makes sense to me also. But that's speculation.

Yes, it is speculation. It could well be that space-time is quantized but I'm not aware of any theory as yet that shows that it has to be so your categorical statement was too strong.

 

[Justice Hunter]

Yes, it is speculation. It could well be that space-time is quantized but I'm not aware of any theory as yet that shows that it has to be so your categorical statement was too strong.

I stand corrected then, because I've always thought the goal to unite QM and GR was to quantize gravity.

 

[PeterDonis]

i've always thought the goal to unite QM and GR was to quantize gravity

That is probably the most popular opinion among physicists, yes. But it's not the only possibility. Until we actually have a theory backed up by experiments in this area, the hypothesis that spacetime itself is quantized, however attractive it seems to many physicists, is still only a hypothesis.

 

[MacRudi]

That is probably the most popular opinion among physicists, yes. But it's not the only possibility. Until we actually have a theory backed up by experiments in this area, the hypothesis that spacetime itself is quantized, however attractive it seems to many physicists, is still only a hypothesis.

True. It is all hypothesis only. And mostly viewed only from the QT view. But maybe we find a geoemtric explanation such as a AdS in a D Brane. Then we don't need any exotic negative energy (dark energy) as a modern Aethertheory (Scalarfield). We have right now no answers, only speculations