EI2GYB > ASTRO 06.11.25 17:30l 54 Lines 5714 Bytes #198 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Are the cosmic voids truly empty?
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Sent: 251106/1828Z 47298@EI2GYB.DGL.IRL.EURO LinBPQ6.0.25
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Are the cosmic voids truly empty?
If we take out all the matter, neutrinos, dark matter, cosmic rays, and radiation from the deepest parts of the voids, the only thing left is empty space. I know it sounds like a paradox, but the voids are full of the vacuum of space-time. And crucially, that's not nothing.
That's because the vacuum of space-time has something inside of it. Or on top of it. Or within it. Or kind of existing within its fundamental fabric. Look, it's kind of hard to precisely describe with words what's going on, but I'm talking about the quantum fields. In quantum field theory, the particles that make up our existence, like electrons and top quarks and neutrinos and even the dark matter aren't really particles.
What we think of as a particle is really just a manifestation of a deeper, more fundamental object. These objects are the fields. There's a field associated with every kind of particle, and these fields completely soak every cubic centimeter of space and time. They have existed since the Big Bang and they completely fill up every corner of the universe.
When we point to something and say oh look at that electron zooming by what we're really seeing is an excitation or a vibration or a wave of the fundamental field that has cohered and is traveling. But even if you take out all the particles even if you take out all the stuff the field itself remains.
And that field has energy. It has energy through the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which is a whole other episode. And when we go to calculate how much energy is in the vacuum we get answers anywhere from an extreme amount of energy to literally an infinite amount of energy.which is also another episode. But this energy has an effect. we call the effect of this energy "dark energy," which is the cool name we give to the accelerated expansion of the universe.
Now, we know from dark energy and the rate of acceleration that we can measure in the universe that the actual amount of energy in the vacuum is not very large. But it's not zero. And the thing about dark energy or vacuum energy or whatever you want to call it is that in dense places in the universe, it doesn't matter. It has no effect.
Here on Earth, there's a lot of density of matter and that presence of matter completely overwhelms any effect that dark energy might have. You could erase dark energy from existence altogether, and we here on Earth would never notice. Trajectories of thrown baseballs would be exactly the same. Your burrito would still take the same amount of time to cook in the microwave. Nothing changes.
The same is true for galaxies. The same is true for clusters. The same is true for filaments. The same is true for walls. The same is true for every part of the cosmic web. Except for the voids. The voids are the places where matter isn't. The voids are places where the vacuum of space-time itself dominates. If you put yourself in the middle of a cosmic void, you are surrounded by dark energy.
In fact, voids are the places where dark energy is doing its job of accelerating the expansion of the universe. It's not happening in any dense places like galaxies or clusters. It's only happening in the voids. The voids don't just empty out to build the cosmic web. the voids themselves are expanding. They are literally tearing the cosmic web apart.
What we see as these very large and beautiful and intricate structures in the universe are temporary. Over the course of the next 5 to 20 billion years, the cosmic web is going to evaporate. And it will do that through the action of the voids pressing against everything else.
So the voids are full. They are vibrating with fundamental quantum energies. They are doing work on the rest of the universe to accelerate its expansion. And they are the only places in the universe that can do this, and the only reason they can do this is because they are devoid of everything else.
So yes, voids are empty of matter. This is how we discover them. This is how we measure them. This is how we define them. But the emptiness of matter means that they are full of dark energy. And so, no matter where you go in the universe, whether it's to a nearby galaxy or the deepest interior of the emptiest void, you will never ever quite be alone.
Provided by Universe Today
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