The dynamics of the quantum vacuum is one of the major unsolved problems of relativistic quantum field theory and cosmology. The reason is that relativistic quantum field theory and general relativity describe processes well below the Planck energy scale, while the deep ultraviolet quantum vacuum at or above the Planck energy scale remains unknown. Following the condensed matter experience we develop a special macroscopic approach called q-theory, which incorporates the ultraviolet degrees of freedom of the quantum vacuum into an effective theory and allows us to study the dynamics of the quantum vacuum and its influence on the evolution of the Universe.

     The vacuum in our approach is considered as the Lorentz-invariant analog of a condensed-matter system (liquid or solid) which is stable in free space. The variable q is the Lorentz-invariant analog of the particle number density, whose conservation regulates the thermodynamics and dynamics of many-body systems. This approach is universal in the sense that the same results are obtained using different formulations of the q-field. In the paper, we choose the q-field in terms of a 4-form field strength, which has, in particular, been used by Hawking for discussion of the main cosmological constant problem -- why is the observed value of the cosmological constant many orders of magnitude smaller than follows from naive estimates of the vacuum energy as the energy of zero-point motion. In q-theory, the huge zero-point energy is naturally cancelled by the microscopic (trans-Planckian) degrees of freedom, as follows from the Gibbs-Duhem identity, which is applicable to any equilibrium ground state including the one of the physical

vacuum.

            In the paper, we consider a further extension of q-theory. We demonstrate that, in an expanding Universe, the variable  effectively splits into two components. The smooth part of the relaxing vacuum field is responsible for dark energy, while the rapidly oscillating component behaves as cold dark matter. In this way, q-theory provides a combined solution to the missing-mass problem and the cosmological constant problem. If this scenario is correct, the implication would be that direct searches for dark-matter particles remain unsuccessful in the foreseeable future.

F.R. Klinkhamer and G.E. Volovik,

JETP Letters  105, issue 2 (2017)