Physics – Condensed Matter – Other Condensed Matter
Scientific paper
2010-04-05
Physics
Condensed Matter
Other Condensed Matter
51 pages, 13 figures, prepared as Chapter XI of the book "Novel Superfluids", K. H. Bennemann and J. B. Ketterson editors
Scientific paper
We discuss phenomenology of quantum vacuum. Phenomenology of macroscopic systems has three sources: thermodynamics, topology and symmetry. Thermodynamics of the self-sustained vacuum allows us to treat the problems related to the vacuum energy: the cosmological constant problems. The natural value of the energy density of the equilibrium the self-sustained vacuum is zero. Cosmology is discussed as the process of relaxation of vacuum towards the equilibrium state. The present value of the cosmological constant is very small compared to the Planck scale, because the present Universe is very old and thus is close to equilibrium. Momentum space topology determines the universality classes of fermionic vacua. The Standard Model vacuum both in its massless and massive states is topological medium. The vacuum in its massless state shares the properties of superfluid 3He-A, which is topological superfluid. It belongs to the Fermi-point universality class, which has topologically protected fermionic quasiparticles. At low energy they behave as relativistic massless Weyl fermions. Gauge fields and gravity emerge together with Weyl fermions at low energy. This allows us to treat the hierarchy problem in Standard Model: the masses of elementary particles are very small compared to the Planck scale because the natural value of the quark and lepton masses is zero. The small nonzero masses appear in the infrared region, where the quantum vacuum acquires the properties of another topological superfluid, 3He-B, and 3+1 topological insulators. The other topological media in dimensions 2+1 and 3+1 are also discussed. In most cases, topology is supported by discrete symmetry of the underlying microscopic system, which indicates the important role of discrete symmetry in Standard Model.
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