The vacuum as a form of turbulent fluid: motivations, experiments, implications

TL;DR

This paper explores the idea that the physical vacuum can be modeled as a turbulent fluid, supported by simulations showing consistency with ether-drift experiments and implications for matter organization.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interpretation of the vacuum as a turbulent fluid and demonstrates its consistency with experimental data through numerical simulations.

Findings

Vacuum turbulence can explain ether-drift experimental signals.

Observed stochastic signals align with Earth's motion relative to the CMB.

Genuine stochastic ether drift may influence matter self-organization.

Abstract

Basic foundational aspects of both quantum theory and relativity might induce to represent the physical vacuum as an underlying highly turbulent fluid. By explicit numerical simulations, we show that a form of statistically isotropic and homogeneous vacuum turbulence is entirely consistent with the present ether-drift experiments. In particular, after subtracting known forms of disturbances, the observed stochastic signal requires velocity fluctuations whose absolute scale is well described by the average Earth's motion with respect to the Cosmic Microwave Background. We emphasize that the existence of a genuine stochastic ether drift could be crucial for the emergence of forms of self-organization in matter and thus for the whole approach to complexity.