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The Vacuum in Relativistic Quantum Field Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Michael Redhead
Michael Redhead*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Extract

Intuitively the vacuum state of the Universe is the state that would obtain if the spacetime arena were emptied of its contents. The idea is that if we removed all the material particles, such as quarks and electrons, together with all the force-carrying particles such as photons and gluons, so there was no matter or force in the Universe, then we would be left with a featureless space-time, the bare arena of physics, and this would be the vacuum.

There are many reasons why such an idea is problematic. On a strict relationist conception of space-time, the procedure envisaged would leave us, not with empty spacetime, but literally with nothing. Having removed the relata, the spatio-temporal relations would also disappear. This problem does not arise for space-time substantivalists, but general relativity now raises difficulties.

Type
Part III. Fields, Particles and Quantum Theories
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1994 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1994 , 1994 , pp. 77 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to David Malament for prompting me to think about these issues in the first place.

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