False Vacuum

[AzureInsanity]

I'm having a tough time understanding exactly what a false vacuum is. I've read the wikipedia page over several times and checked a few physics sites but all the explanations I've seen have left my head spinning. Anyone got a simple explanation? @_@

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Made it simple Vacuum is having absolutly nothing there, false vacuum apears to be absolutly void but in reality it has some energetic debrees and probbaly microscopic particles (i.e. not exactly absolutly void). Wich there isn't really any.

 

[AndromedasWake]

Made it simple Vacuum is having absolutly nothing there, false vacuum apears to be absolutly void but in reality it has some energetic debrees and probbaly microscopic particles (i.e. not exactly absolutly void). Wich there isn't really any.

Not quite. You see no natural or man-made vacuum is perfect.

A false vacuum is something that arrises in quantum cosmology and is not easy to understand without studying in that field. Hence it is not easy for me to understand, but I will do my best to provide an over-simplified explanation. During the big bang, inflation triggered a rapid expansion and cooling of the universe, which allowed the Higgs fields to freeze out. Physicists believe that these fields remained at a local minimum energy state for a period of time. The fields are required to decay, reaching higher energy states before matter can interact to form particles as we now know them, but they had too many optional energy states available. In this capacity, the fields cannot "decide" which state to adopt and thus remain at a local minimum. Physicists call this state a false vacuum. The fields are teetering on the edge but in some sense they are stable. If a false vacuum were created now (as a bubble) it could in some scenarios consume the entire universe, 'reseting' fundamental forces and destroying all life. Hence we can be pretty sure we aren't living in a false vacuum universe now. I said above that a false vacuum appears to be stable, but in quantum mechanics, things can change quickly. If the universe did exist as a false vacuum, at some point (rather early on) the stability was lost and matter was allowed to form and interact. Understanding this is crucial to physics as it will allow us to work out how matter and energy behaved when it was being distributed.

A false vacuum is a term from quantum field theory. Like most things in this science, it is not easy to visualise or describe in physical terms and it shouldn't really be confused with more traditional ideas of what a vacuum is. If you can wrap your head around the mathematics of quantum field theory, you are actually approaching the very limits of human understanding! :shock:

I hope this helps to answer your question in some way. If a cosmologist comes in, they can demolish this with the correct answer in the correct terms.

 

[AzureInsanity]

Helps a little, thanks ^_^

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

hum... So i guess I don't quite know the context in wich he talks about false vacuum.

 

[scikidus]

AndromedasWake: I've always understood false vacuums as areas devoid of matter but in which particles pop in and out of existence.

Just how wrong am I? And along similar lines, what is a true vacuum?

 

[COMMUNIST FLISK]

isnt space a false vacuum? as i understand it, space has about 100 neutrinos per cm cubed does it not?
surely that means its not a perfect vacuum, but because most people say it is, it is therefore a false one? :lol: