Is Dark Energy a Cosmic Casimir Effect?

TL;DR

This paper proposes that dark energy may originate from a cosmic Casimir effect, where short-distance zero-point energy effects are renormalized, leaving a residual energy density that explains the current dark energy.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model linking zero-point energy renormalization to the observed dark energy, based on early universe effects and mode wavelength considerations.

Findings

Zero-point energies of long-wavelength modes can account for dark energy.

The model predicts specific observable consequences for cosmology.

Abstract

Unknown short-distance effects cancel the quartic divergence of the zero-point energies. If this renormalization took effect in the early universe after the last phase transition and applied only to modes whose wavelengths (over 2 pi) were shorter than the Hubble length 1/H at that time, then the zero-point energies of the modes of longer wavelengths can approximately account for the present value of the dark-energy density. The model makes two predictions.