Bibcode
Beck, Christian
Referencia bibliográfica
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Volume 31, Issue 1, pp. 123-130 (2006).
Advertised on:
3
2006
Número de citas
12
Número de citas referidas
8
Descripción
The physical nature of the currently observed dark energy in the
universe is completely unclear, and many different theoretical models
co-exist. Nevertheless, if dark energy is produced by vacuum
fluctuations then there is a chance to probe some of its properties by
simple laboratory tests based on Josephson junctions. These electronic
devices can be used to perform 'vacuum fluctuation spectroscopy', by
directly measuring a noise spectrum induced by vacuum fluctuations. One
would expect to see a cutoff near 1.7 THz in the measured power
spectrum, provided the new physics underlying dark energy couples to
electric charge. The effect exploited by the Josephson junction is a
subtile nonlinear mixing effect and has nothing to do with the Casimir
effect or other effects based on van der Waals forces. A Josephson
experiment of the suggested type will now be built, and we should know
the result within the next 3 years.