Chinese researchers have made important progress in dark energy research
Xinhua News Agency, Wuhan, September 27 (Reporter Tan Yuanbin) Dark energy is the energy that drives the accelerated expansion of the universe.
The origin and nature of dark energy have always been mysterious and unpredictable. The academic circles generally believe that vacuum energy and scalar fields are two possible candidates for dark energy.
The latest research by Chinese researchers effectively ruled out the possibility of vacuum energy as dark energy, and gave theoretical restrictions on scalar fields as dark energy candidates.
According to reports, on the scale of the universe, galaxies are subject to gravitational interactions and should move closer to each other, but in fact the universe is accelerating and expanding, and galaxies are moving away from each other. This implies that there is still an unrecognized energy in the universe, namely The so-called dark energy.
The uncertainty of quantum mechanics predicts that even in a vacuum, there will be fluctuations in virtual particles, resulting in non-zero vacuum energy.
The vacuum energy caused by quantum effects is equivalent to a cosmological constant, playing the role of dark energy, leading to accelerated expansion of the universe.
Cai Qingyu, a researcher at the Institute of Precision Measurement Science and Technology Innovation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and He Dongshan, Ph.D. from Xianyang Normal University, started from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation and used the De Broglie-Bohm quantum orbital theory to give a quantum correction Friedman equation.
They used this equation to study the changes in quantum effects in the universe from small to large.
The results show that: when the universe is very small, its quantum effect is very significant, which can effectively promote the accelerated growth of the universe.
As the universe grows up, its quantum effects quickly decay.
For the grown up universe, whether it is a vacuum or a matter-dominated, its quantum effect is far smaller than the value of dark energy, and it cannot provide sufficient support for the accelerated expansion of the universe.
Cai Qingyu and He Dongshan also gave theoretical limitations on scalar fields as dark energy candidates, focusing on the direction for further research on the properties of dark energy.
Relevant research results have recently been published in Physics Letters B, an internationally renowned academic journal in the field of physics.