UNDERSTANDING NOTHING

The Structure of the Vacuum

A Talk by
Dr Nick Evans

A tour of our understanding

of empty space in modern
physics from Relativity to
Quantum Mechanics to the
frontiers of Particle Physics
and String Theory

UNDERSTANDING NOTHING
The Structure of the Vacuum

Historical perspective on the void

The quantum vacuum

The discovery of empty space

The higgs boson search

Space time

Quantum gravity and strings

The Greeks
Nothing = the absence of properties
Existence is a property

a void can not exist

Space is defined by its content

Continuous matter
Platonic ideals the possibility of matter
Nature abhors a vacuum!
The Greeks even declined to invent the essential symbol 0

Medieval Christian Philosophy

Greeks were closer to creation so remembered more of
Eden Aristotle ruled!

Nothing = no God!
There can not be empty space yet
God created the world out of nothing

Debate but beware the pyre!

Eastern Influences
Indian philosophy embraced the idea of void
We come from nothing
We should seek to return to nothing (Nirvana)
The Indians invented the symbol for nothing - 0
The idea spread through the medieval Islamic empires
To the Moors of Spain
Finally to Europe Gerbert of Aurillac in ~ 980 AD

Medieval Thought Experiments

Roger Bacon (~1250 AD) and others were
interested in constructing a vacuum
They argued about whether you could do it by
separating two sheets of glass

vacuum

Much argument. Few conclusions

Discovery of the Vacuum

The scientific revolution was growth of idea that you should
LOOK at nature as well as think about it
In 1643 Galileos student Torricelli created
a vacuum
So Simple!

Otto Von Guerick revelled in the

discovery!
(Magdeburg 1654)
Nature protects a vacuum!

Studying Nothing
Boyle created a vacuum by pumping air from a flask then studied
Sound does not travel in a vacuum air waves
Animals dont survive in a vacuum they breath air
Light can travel in a vacuum
Pascal showed the atmosphere had limited extent
(The Tibetans believed air
was poisonous at the top
of mountains just
thinner!)

Space
The problem of understanding planetary motion also came to a head
Descartes (1636) had a model
of fluid vortices
It didnt match the observations!

Newton (1687) proposed a universal law of gravity

2
F= GmM/r
Which acted instantaneously at a distance on planets in an empty
space it worked!
More confirmation that the atmosphere ends

The Ethereal Realm

Light is a wave
Waves are oscillations of a medium

The vacuum must be full of ether

James Clarke Maxwell (who pioneered our
understanding of light as an electro-magnetic wave)
envision a mechanical vacuum of etheric vortices.

Science fantasy: Space 1889

Michelson and Morley

In 1887 Michelson and Morley did an experiment to detect the ether
using the earths motion relative to the ether

They saw no time difference

between the paths.
There is no ether!

Amazingly light travels at the same speed relative to any observer!

Thus nothing can move faster than light

Relativity
A flash of light causes a spherical wave front even if you move relative to
source
This only makes sense if space and
time mix!

*
x 2 + y 2 + z 2 = (c t)

t =

(1 v /c ) ( t v x / c )

x=

(1 v /c )

( x v t)

Now you have to be careful about speed, momentum, energy

E=mc

You can create matter out of energy

Fields are Fundamental

So what is light?
An oscillating wave form of electric and magnetic fields

Electric field was introduced as a short hand for recording the force a
particle would feel at a point. Now we believe that it is an intrinsic
object that can exist in the absence of a charge experiencing a force!

Relativistic Space-Time
Newtons gravity cant be the whole truth instantaneous action at a
distance is forbidden.
General Relativity describes gravity in a new way
Particles travel by the shortest path in a space curved by
masses

Space-time is like a rubber sheet that can be bent

Note: only the surface exists!
Note: change to gravity and F=ma sets gravit. mass = inertial mass

Gravitational Waves
A very heavy mass, like a star, distorts the space time
sheet if it oscillates or collides with something

The energy loss from this emission has

been seen for a pair of orbiting neutron stars

Searches are now on to see these

very weak waves directly at LIGO

The Quantum World

Energy comes in lumps

E=hf

Fields can look like particles

The photon is the quantum of the electromagnetic field/ light

Quantum Dynamics
The quantum in
some sense travels
by both paths.

There is an uncertainty in the position and momentum of the quantum

Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle
Or equally

x
t

p >h
E >h

The Quantum Vacuum

E

t >h
The vacuum can borrow energy for short periods

E = mc 2
The borrowed energy can be used to create particles
(You cant just create an electron because of charge
conservation - but can create electron positron pair)
The quantum vacuum is a seething mass of particles appearing and
disappearing constantly.

How Can You Tell?

The virtual particle
pairs interfere in
electron scattering
processes.

The effective charge

seen in two electron
scattering depends on
the separation of the
electrons.

The Strong Nuclear Force

The strong nuclear force is

described by a theory that is
similar to
electromagnetism except
that the fields carry (colour)
charge..
This difference changes the
way in which the vacuum is
polarized so that

Confinement
You can never pull hard enough to
liberate a quark from a proton

The QCD Vacuum

Every so often quantum effects create a quark anti-quark pair.
The attractive force is so strong that
binding energy >> mass energy
The vacuum has lower energy if it fills itself with quark antiquark pairs!

The vacuum is really full of quark anti-quark pairs with a density

15
3
like that of an atomic nucleus (10 grams/cm ) !!

The Proton Mass

The quark pairs are responsible for the protons mass

Interaction
energy provides
proton mass

Mass Needs Explaining!

Massless particles dont exist at rest ( E = 0 ). They must
move at the speed of light
Many particles (electrons, quarks) spin on their axes
For massless particles these are
different sorts of particles!
(The weak nuclear force only
acts on left-handed spinning
particles!)
Why do they get tied up into massive particles? The strong
nuclear force is the answer for quarks.

The Origin of Mass

The strong nuclear force cannot explain the mass of the electron
though
Or very heavy quarks such as the top quark
top mass = 175 proton mass

The Higgs Boson

We suspect the vacuum is full of another sort of matter that
is responsible the higgs.

To explain the top mass the higgs vacuum must be 100 times
denser than nuclear matter!!

The Search for the Higgs

To find the higgs we must excite the vacuum produce a
higgs particle we collide electrons, protons etc so there is
100 times nuclear energy density in some region.
We havent found it
so far but
The Large Hadron
Collider in
Switzerland will
switch on in
2008
There are many versions of the higgs theory when we find it
we can study its properties in detail.

Quantum Gravity
If the vacuum is full of all this stuff shouldnt we be pulled
gravitationally by it?
Since it is uniformily distributed there is no net pull (equal
space to all sides)
But General Relativity says the energy should uniformily
curve space-time the Universe should be the size of a
grapefruit!!
Theres something big we dont
understand about quantum gravity
an open problem (much studied!)

Gravity is different to the other forces its only attractive

In General Relativity this shows up in that gravitational
waves have different polarizations to electromagnetic waves

What fundamental theory can encompass both types of fields?

String Theory

A rapidly developing area of study producing many fresh

ideas but all speculation to date!

Overview
Science in part emerged from philosophical discussion of the
vacuum
vacuum
Empty space does appear to exist (what is it though?)
Space and time mix into a curved surface in GR
Quantum theory fills space with virtual particles
Nuclear force lowers vacuum energy by filling with quarks
Is the vacuum full of higgs particles too?
Problems remain in understanding quantum gravity