Is the physical vacuum a preferred frame ?

Abstract

It is generally assumed that the physical vacuum of particle physics should be characterized by an energy momentum tensor in such a way to preserve exact Lorentz invariance. On the other hand, if the ground state were characterized by its energy-momentum vector, with zero spatial momentum and a non-zero energy, the vacuum would represent a preferred frame. Since both theoretical approaches have their own good motivations, we propose an experimental test to decide between the two scenarios.

12 pages, no figures

References in corpus (4)

• Superfluid analogies of cosmological phenomena
• Test of the isotropy of the speed of light using a continuously rotating optical resonator
• From classical to modern ether-drift experiments: the narrow window for a preferred frame
• Vacuum condensates and `ether-drift' experiments

Cited by in corpus (8)

• The classical ether-drift experiments: a modern re-interpretation
• Cosmic Microwave Background and the issue of a fundamental preferred frame
• Emergent gravity and ether-drift experiments
• The CMB, preferred reference system and dragging of light in the earth frame
• Basic randomness of nature and ether-drift experiments
• Precision tests with a new class of dedicated ether-drift experiments
• Michelson-Morley Experiments: at the crossroads of Relativity, Cosmology and Quantum Physics
• Quantum Non-Locality and the CMB: what Experiments say