Ultraweak excitations of the quantum vacuum as physical models of gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores how ultraweak excitations in the quantum vacuum, modeled as a Bose condensate, could give rise to gravitational effects similar to classical gravity, linking quantum field theory with emergent spacetime geometry.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum field theoretical framework for vacuum excitations as models of gravity, emphasizing the emergence of weak 1/r interactions from the quantum vacuum.

Findings

Vacuum excitations can mimic Newtonian gravity at coarse scales

Weak 1/r interactions originate from quantum vacuum properties

Effective curved spacetime can emerge from quantum vacuum dynamics

Abstract

It has been argued by several authors that the space-time curvature observed in gravitational fields, and the same idea of forms of physical equivalence different from the Lorentz group, might emerge from the dynamical properties of the physical flat-space vacuum in a suitable hydrodynamic limit. To explore this idea, one could start by representing the physical vacuum as a Bose condensate of elementary quanta and look for vacuum excitations that, on a coarse grained scale, resemble the Newtonian potential. In this way, it is relatively easy to match the weak-field limit of classical General Relativity or of some of its possible variants. The idea that Bose condensates can provide various forms of gravitational dynamics is not new. Here, I want to emphasize some genuine quantum field theoretical aspects that can help to understand i) why infinitesimally weak, 1/r interactions can indeed arise from the same physical vacuum of electroweak and strong interactions and ii) why, on a coarse-grained scale, their dynamical effects can be re-absorbed into an effective curved metric structure.