EdEarl Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 Wikipedia Vacuum energy is an underlying background energy that exists in space throughout the entire Universe. Clearly the vacuum energy has not been measured everywhere. Can I assume the vacuum energy is more or less constant everywhere, or is it possible some places have a different vacuum energy than other places? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 You can reduce the vacuum energy in small gaps between conductive surfaces. That gives rise to the Casimir force. But otherwise, being the same everywhere seems to be a reasonable assumption. Pointless, in a way, since you can't tap into it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdEarl Posted April 8, 2016 Author Share Posted April 8, 2016 I know you can't tap into it. I was reading about the vacuum catastrophe, and wondered if vacuum energy is different in space, distant from a gravity well, around a black hole, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mordred Posted April 8, 2016 Share Posted April 8, 2016 It depends on the system. For example a vacuum has a pressure gradient near sources of mass. However on sufficiently large enough scales it uniform in distribution. Ie there is no pressure gradient on cosmological scales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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