Extremely simple discussion on “Vacuum Decay”

Version : 0.4 – in development
Status : Very speculative
Date : 17/04/2010
By : Albert van der Sel
Type of doc : just an attempt to decribe the subject in a few simple words.
Remark : You should be very sceptical about the content.

You might remember that before the first tests of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern (Geneva),
took place, a few scientists protested fiercely, and even started a court case in order
to prevent the scheduled high energy experiments.
Their fear mainly seemed to revolve around "mini black hole" creation, that might end our world.

You may have laughed about it at that time, but there indeed is a serious matter to be concerned with,
and that is the possibility of "Vacuum Decay".
Now, that phenomenon is still likely to be many orders of Energy away from what the LHC can reach,
but the subject is interresting enough to spend a few words on it.

The "Vacuum" might be able to "exist" in several "states". And that sentence really describes the
heart of the problem.
One should realize here, that if the Vacuum would change "state", it would change all properties
of any physical system.
The idea of Vacuum States is really a quite accepted idea among many physicists.

To add more "weight" to the upper statements: did you know that a theory like "The Inflationary Universe" that preceded
the Big Bang, is based (among many other things) on the assumption that the Vacuum shifted from state?

The basic idea is, that we are living in a socalled "false vacuum", with a higher Energy potential,
than the true ground state of the "true vacuum".
This is "somewhat" illustrated in the figure on the left.
Here, the False Vacuum we (and all other physical systems) live in, is represented by "I",
while the true vacuum is represented by "II".

If we indeed would exists in a false vacuum, it would contribute to the fact that
Zero Point Energy (ZPE) phenomena, could be explained quite well.

The false vacuum "state" could have originated during the Big Bang, where the "phase transition"
did not completed.
This is not unlike certain observations you can make here on earth. With some liquids and gasses,
given certain boundary conditions (like pressure and temperature), a liquid should have been
a gas already, but the boundary conditions prevents it from being so.

The point is, that a phase transition can start out at a localized region, and that will "ignite"
(so to speak) the rest. It resembles the effect as if you pierced a hole into a cilinder with liquid gas
under high pressure.

Could a high energy experiment (like with a particle accelerator), in principle, trigger such an event?

We must realize ourselves here, that in the Universe, very high energy events take place,
that makes our particle accelerators, in comparison, very little "dwarfs".
So, for the time being, I would say that there is nothing to worry about.

But who can be exactly sure...? Right: Nobody knows exactly where the limits are.

Facinating, isn't it? Explore my site, or the net, for more information.

Just a few other remarks:

1. Would't it be ironic (and unlikely) that the insignificant Human race (on a cosmological scale), would be able
to "destroy" the Universe as we know it? Just by using a large accelerator or other device?
Indeed, that would be very remarkable! In fact, it's very unlikely.
You might interpreted that as an indication, that either there are no Vacuum States,
or it's really, really close to impossible to trigger the Vacuum Decay.

2. If the Vacuum Decay started "somewhere" in the Universe, this "bubble" would
expand at lightspeed.
So, at various distant "places" in the Universe, it might already have started, without us knowing about it.

3. It's not impossible that multiple "vacuum states" exists, instead of just "false" and "true".
There could be a whole range of discrete states !
Some scientists even suspect that there could be so many states, that they even compare it to the "weather".
This then could imply the existence of very different regions in the Universe.
If that is true, such a "destructive" scenario as depicted in this note, would not be likely.