BHT5 - |
Speaker_ |
Mottola, Emil |
Co-autors |
P. O. Mazur |
Talk _ |
Dark Energy and Condensate Stars: A Quantum Alternative to Classical Black Holes |
Abstract _ |
It is suggested that the dark energy apparently pervading our universe is vacuum energy due to a causal boundary effect at the cosmological horizon. A simple model with a purely vacuum energy de Sitter interior and Schwarzschild exterior, separated by a thin boundary layer is outlined. The boundary layer is a quantum transition region which replaces the event horizons of the classical solutions, through which the vacuum energy changes. This suggests that a quantum BEC phase transition in gravity in which the local vacuum energy changes could lead to a new kind of non-singular endpoint of collapse, a GBEC star. Like a black hole, a collapsed object of this kind would be cold and dark, but unlike a classical black hole, a GBEC star has no singularities, no event horizons, and a modest entropy. |