2003/05/14 by R. Brout, Robert Brout, Brout, Robert · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.gr-qc/0305054
Recipient of Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation Essay competition 2003. 6 pages
arxiv created 2003/05/14 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
To confront the transplanckian problem encountered in the backward extrapolation of the cosmological expansion of the momenta of the modes of quantum field theory, it is proposed that there is a reservoir, depository of transplanckian degrees of freedom. These are solicited by the cisplanckian modes so as to keep their density fixed and the total energy density of vacuum at a minimum. The mechanism is due to mode - reservoir interaction, whereupon virtual quantum processes give rise to an effective mode-mode attraction. A BCS condensate results. It has a massless and massy collective excitation, the latter identified with the inflaton. For an effective non dimensional mode-reservoir coupling constant, g approx 0.3, the order of magnitude of its mass is what is required to account for cosmological fluctuations i.e. O(10-6 -> 10-5)mPlanck.