Electromagnetic Dark Energy

Beck, Christian; Mackey, Michael C.
Bibliographical reference

International Journal of Modern Physics D, Volume 17, Issue 01, pp. 71-80 (2008).

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0
2008
Number of authors
2
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
25
Refereed citations
20
Description
We introduce a new model for dark energy in the Universe in which a small cosmological constant is generated by ordinary electromagnetic vacuum energy. The corresponding virtual photons exist at all frequencies but switch from a gravitationally active phase at low frequencies to a gravitationally inactive phase at higher frequencies via a Ginzburg-Landau type of phase transition. Only virtual photons in the gravitationally active state contribute to the cosmological constant. A small vacuum energy density, consistent with astronomical observations, is naturally generated in this model. We propose possible laboratory tests for such a scenario based on phase synchronization in superconductors.