Stochastic nonrelativistic approach to gravity as originating from vacuum zero-point field van der Waals forces
Daniel C. Cole · Alfonso Rueda · Konn Danley
Summary and citation · read the original at the source
In one page
One of the boldest ideas in this whole subject is that gravity is not a fundamental force at all but a leftover — the same kind of residue that makes two neutral atoms attract, the van der Waals force, except summed over every particle and driven by the zero-point field of the vacuum. Daniel Cole, Alfonso Rueda and Konn Danley take that proposal seriously enough to test it properly. Rueda is one of the authors of the zero-point-field theory of inertia, so this is the programme auditing its own foundations rather than an outsider taking a shot. They start from the Casimir-Polder integral, the standard expression for the vacuum-induced force between two polarisable particles, and show it can be evaluated directly, without the approximations earlier treatments had leaned on. Done that way, this particular route does not deliver Newtonian gravity. The authors then name exactly what would have to change: different or additional physical constraints, or dynamics handled outside the slow-moving framework the Casimir-Polder integral assumes.
Why it matters hereChapter 3 holds that gravity is induced by the vacuum rather than fundamental, and this paper is the reason that chapter points at the relativistic, polarizable-vacuum line of attack rather than at a simple sum of van der Waals forces: the honest calculation closes one door and labels the others. Chapter 2 gains a precise piece of vacuum bookkeeping — what the Casimir-Polder integral does and does not contain. Read it beside the inertia paper at /library/stm-532ddcda6d and the stochastic electrodynamics survey at /library/stm-1011f1af4f.
What it claims
01The proposal under analysis is that gravity may originate as a van der Waals type of residual force between particles, produced by the electromagnetic zero-point field of the vacuum — that is, gravity as an induced effect of the vacuum rather than a fundamental interaction.Abstract, opening sentence
Published and peer-reviewed02Starting from the Casimir-Polder integral, the standard expression for the vacuum-induced force between two polarisable particles, the authors show that the proposed approach can be analysed directly, without recourse to the approximations previously made in this line of work.Abstract; statement of method
Published and peer-reviewed03Carried through in that direct form, the approach does not reproduce Newtonian gravity — at least not with this particular starting point.Abstract; conclusion
Published and peer-reviewed04The authors name the two ways out and leave them open: imposing different or additional physical constraints, or treating the underlying dynamics differently from what is embodied in the Casimir-Polder integral.Abstract, closing sentence
What to watch05The verdict is bounded by its own method, and the authors say so: the Casimir-Polder integral is inherently subrelativistic, and the whole treatment here is stochastic and nonrelativistic — the vacuum field handled as a real random classical field acting on particles — so a relativistic derivation of induced gravity is not what has been tested.Title; abstract, closing sentence
What to watch
The way in
https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.63.054101LICENCE. Published as Physical Review A, volume 63, article 054101 (2001); the Crossref record carries the APS default licence and no Creative Commons statement appears on the article, so this page reproduces none of it and sends the reader to the source. The summary and the claims below are written from the authors’ own published abstract. Alfonso Rueda is a co-author of the zero-point-field inertia papers on this site at /library/stm-532ddcda6d; the stochastic electrodynamics background is at /library/stm-1011f1af4f.
How to cite it
Daniel C. Cole, Alfonso Rueda, Konn Danley (2001) Stochastic nonrelativistic approach to gravity as originating from vacuum zero-point field van der Waals forces. doi:10.1103/physreva.63.054101
Where it sits in the curriculum