Quantum Vacuum before the big bang?

[petersaysstuf]

I understand that the quantum vacuum is nothing with particles popping into and out of existence and I also understand that this has been in existence since the big bang but I am curious as to whether this type of nothing could exist before the big bang (not relying on a multiverse). I assume it could but I want some more information. If not what are the leading quantum theories on how the cosmic singularity came about?

 

[Varon]

I understand that the quantum vacuum is nothing with particles popping into and out of existence and I also understand that this has been in existence since the big bang but I am curious as to whether this type of nothing could exist before the big bang (not relying on a multiverse). I assume it could but I want some more information. If not what are the leading quantum theories on how the cosmic singularity came about?

According to Neumaier, the quantum vacuum is just mathematics as well as virtual particles which are only mathematical artifacts. Meaning they don't really exist outside of mathematics.

 

[petersaysstuf]

According to Neumaier, the quantum vacuum is just mathematics as well as virtual particles which are only mathematical artifacts. Meaning they don't really exist outside of mathematics.

But if that is true then why is their predictive ability unprecedented?

 

[Bill_K]

When you start calling things fictitious, you've left the realm of physics and mathematics and ventured into philosophy. Virtual particles are different, but also it's a matter of degree. One could argue that all particles are virtual, in the sense that they are en route from one interaction to another, and therefore ever so slightly off the mass shell.

Anyway regarding the Big Bang, we have no information on what came before it, if that even means anything. Vacuum is just defined to be the ground state. The prevailing theory is that the earliest stages of the Big Bang had a different vacuum state, in which spontaneously broken symmetries such as electroweak symmetry were unbroken. As things cooled, a phase change occurred in which this state became unstable and decayed into the vacuum state we have now.

 

[petersaysstuf]

What was called fictious?

But thank you for your response.