- Jan 7, 2002
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Earlier this year, PhysOrg reported on a new idea that suggested that gravitational charges in the quantum vacuum could provide an alternative to dark matter. The idea rests on the hypothesis that particles and antiparticles have gravitational charges of opposite sign. As a consequence, virtual particle-antiparticle pairs in the quantum vacuum form gravitational dipoles (having both a positive and negative gravitational charge) that can interact with baryonic matter to produce phenomena usually attributed to dark matter. Although CERN physicist Dragan Slavkov Hajdukovic, who proposed the idea, mathematically demonstrated that these gravitational dipoles could explain the observed rotational curves of galaxies without dark matter in his initial study, he noted that much more work needed to be done.
Contemporary physics has two cornerstones: General Relativity and the Standard Model of Particle Physics, he writes. General Relativity is our best theory of gravitation. The Standard Model is a collection of Quantum Field Theories; according to the Standard Model, everything in the Universe is made from six quarks and six leptons (and their antiparticles) which interact through exchange of gauge bosons (photon for electromagnetic interactions, W and Z for weak interactions and eight gluons for strong interactions).
He goes on to explain that these two theories do not fit with certain observations, one of which is that the gravitational field in the universe appears much stronger than it should be according to General Relativity and the existing amount of baryonic matter, which is composed of Standard Model particles. While thousands of scientists around the world are trying to figure out whether one of the two cornerstone theories needs modification, Hajdukovics idea does not require modifying gravity or invoking new matter. He summarizes it this way:
In simple words, according to the Quantum Field Theory, all baryonic matter in the Universe is immersed in the quantum vacuum; popularly speaking, a sea of short-living virtual particle-antiparticle pairs (like electron-positron pairs with the lifetime of about 10-22 seconds, or neutrino-antineutrino pairs with a lifetime of about 10-15 seconds, which is a record lifetime in the quantum vacuum). It is difficult to believe that the quantum vacuum does not interact gravitationally with the baryonic matter immersed in it. In spite of it, the quantum vacuum is ignored in astrophysics and cosmology; not because we are not aware of its importance but because no one has any idea what the gravitational properties of the quantum vacuum are. In absence of any knowledge, as a starting point, we have conjectured that particles and antiparticles have the gravitational charge of opposite sign. An immediate consequence is the existence of the gravitational dipoles; a virtual pair is a gravitational dipole (in the same way as a virtual electron-positron pair is an electric dipole), that allows the gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum. The initial study has revealed the surprising possibility that the gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum can produce phenomena usually attributed to dark matter.
He said that the idea is not a full theory yet, and acknowledges that it conflicts with many of our basic human assumptions.
I would say a theory in the early stage, he told PhysOrg.com. Thousands of scientists work on the development of the cold dark matter theory and the theories of modified gravity; I am working alone in this third direction. The involvement of the other scientists in the research is crucial but still uncertain. On one side I have obtained a few results in striking agreement with the measurements, but on the other side a huge majority of physicists is allergic to the idea of the gravitational repulsion between matter and antimatter; the most common experience of all humans is that everything falls down, and it is not easy to swallow the idea that antimatter may fall up.
In the future, Hajdukovic plans to further investigate another intriguing consequence that arises from his equations. When he extended one equation from describing the radius of a galactic dark matter halo to the radius of the entire observable universe (about 14 billion parsecs), the equation predicted the current dark matter content of the entire universe to be about 1.7 x 1023 solar masses, which is consistent with accepted estimates. However, Hajdukovics equation has one important difference from the accepted ratio of baryonic to dark matter, which is currently estimated at about 1:5.
The contemporary cosmology is based on the assumption that the ratio of baryonic to dark matter is a constant, not changing with time, he said. If my theory is correct, this ratio decreases with the expansion of the universe. The solution of the cosmological equations must be different with a fixed and a variable ratio. It will be the subject of one of my future publications.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-quantum-vacuum-dark.html
Contemporary physics has two cornerstones: General Relativity and the Standard Model of Particle Physics, he writes. General Relativity is our best theory of gravitation. The Standard Model is a collection of Quantum Field Theories; according to the Standard Model, everything in the Universe is made from six quarks and six leptons (and their antiparticles) which interact through exchange of gauge bosons (photon for electromagnetic interactions, W and Z for weak interactions and eight gluons for strong interactions).
He goes on to explain that these two theories do not fit with certain observations, one of which is that the gravitational field in the universe appears much stronger than it should be according to General Relativity and the existing amount of baryonic matter, which is composed of Standard Model particles. While thousands of scientists around the world are trying to figure out whether one of the two cornerstone theories needs modification, Hajdukovics idea does not require modifying gravity or invoking new matter. He summarizes it this way:
In simple words, according to the Quantum Field Theory, all baryonic matter in the Universe is immersed in the quantum vacuum; popularly speaking, a sea of short-living virtual particle-antiparticle pairs (like electron-positron pairs with the lifetime of about 10-22 seconds, or neutrino-antineutrino pairs with a lifetime of about 10-15 seconds, which is a record lifetime in the quantum vacuum). It is difficult to believe that the quantum vacuum does not interact gravitationally with the baryonic matter immersed in it. In spite of it, the quantum vacuum is ignored in astrophysics and cosmology; not because we are not aware of its importance but because no one has any idea what the gravitational properties of the quantum vacuum are. In absence of any knowledge, as a starting point, we have conjectured that particles and antiparticles have the gravitational charge of opposite sign. An immediate consequence is the existence of the gravitational dipoles; a virtual pair is a gravitational dipole (in the same way as a virtual electron-positron pair is an electric dipole), that allows the gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum. The initial study has revealed the surprising possibility that the gravitational polarization of the quantum vacuum can produce phenomena usually attributed to dark matter.
He said that the idea is not a full theory yet, and acknowledges that it conflicts with many of our basic human assumptions.
I would say a theory in the early stage, he told PhysOrg.com. Thousands of scientists work on the development of the cold dark matter theory and the theories of modified gravity; I am working alone in this third direction. The involvement of the other scientists in the research is crucial but still uncertain. On one side I have obtained a few results in striking agreement with the measurements, but on the other side a huge majority of physicists is allergic to the idea of the gravitational repulsion between matter and antimatter; the most common experience of all humans is that everything falls down, and it is not easy to swallow the idea that antimatter may fall up.
In the future, Hajdukovic plans to further investigate another intriguing consequence that arises from his equations. When he extended one equation from describing the radius of a galactic dark matter halo to the radius of the entire observable universe (about 14 billion parsecs), the equation predicted the current dark matter content of the entire universe to be about 1.7 x 1023 solar masses, which is consistent with accepted estimates. However, Hajdukovics equation has one important difference from the accepted ratio of baryonic to dark matter, which is currently estimated at about 1:5.
The contemporary cosmology is based on the assumption that the ratio of baryonic to dark matter is a constant, not changing with time, he said. If my theory is correct, this ratio decreases with the expansion of the universe. The solution of the cosmological equations must be different with a fixed and a variable ratio. It will be the subject of one of my future publications.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-11-quantum-vacuum-dark.html
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