The Universe in a Helium Droplet

The universe in a Helium Droplet is a book written by theoretical physicist Grigory E. Volovik. In this book Dr. Volovik presents an alternative solution to the problem of the cosmological constant. His proposal makes the respectable assumption that the vacuum can be modelled as a cold quantum liquid in thermodynamic equilibrium. Explore this thought-provoking  and interesting proposal...

By Gregory E. Volovik

Low Temperature Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology

and 

Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Moscow

FOREWORD

It is often said that the problem of the very small cosmological constant is the greatest mystery in cosmology and in particle physics, and that no one has any good ideas on how to solve it. The contents of this book make a lie of that statement. The material in this monograph builds upon a candidate solution to the problem, often dubbed ‘emergence’. It is a solution so simple and direct that it can be stated here in this foreword. Visualize the vacuum of particle physics as if it were a cold quantum liquid in equilibrium. Then its pressure must vanish, unless it is a droplet – in which case there will be surface corrections scaling as an inverse power of the droplet size. But vacuum dark pressure scales with the vacuum dark energy, and thus is measured by the cosmological constant, which indeed scales as the inverse square of the ‘size’ of the universe. The problem is ‘solved’.