Is energy conserved in an expanding universe?

[Robert100]

"General Relativity teaches us that Space is expanding." Ok, so as we discussed in a previous thread, a literal interpretation of this is nonsense. "Empty space" does not expand. Rather, objects move apart. Fine, but the universe as a whole is expanding, right? (Of course, we have little idea of the true size of our universe. But at the present moment in galactic history its volume is understood to be increasing, and not just in our observable Hubble volume. Also, the universe almost certainly is expanding at the same rate for many Hubble volumes outside our own.)

But QM teaches us that empty space isn't truly empty. The vacuum energy is very small, but non-zero. So why doesn't the expansion of space mean increase the total amount of vacuum energy? Wouldn't this violate the law of conservation of energy? (Not that this would bother me all that much; the Big Bang itself seems to violate this law.) Or does my postulated increase in vacuum energy come at the expense of losing energy somewhere else?

Any responses would be much appreciated! If this question was already addressed in some previous thread here on physicsforums, then by all means please let me know the appropriate link.

Thanks,

Robert

 

[pmb_phy]

"General Relativity teaches us that Space is expanding." Ok, so as we discussed in a previous thread, a literal interpretation of this is nonsense. "Empty space" does not expand. Rather, objects move apart. Fine, but the universe as a whole is expanding, right? (Of course, we have little idea of the true size of our universe. But at the present moment in galactic history its volume is understood to be increasing, and not just in our observable Hubble volume. Also, the universe almost certainly is expanding at the same rate for many Hubble volumes outside our own.)

But QM teaches us that empty space isn't truly empty. The vacuum energy is very small, but non-zero. So why doesn't the expansion of space mean increase the total amount of vacuum energy? Wouldn't this violate the law of conservation of energy? (Not that this would bother me all that much; the Big Bang itself seems to violate this law.) Or does my postulated increase in vacuum energy come at the expense of losing energy somewhere else?

Any responses would be much appreciated! If this question was already addressed in some previous thread here on physicsforums, then by all means please let me know the appropriate link.

Thanks,

Robert

I believe that I read somewhere (probably here of the FAQ for sci.physics.relativity) that it is unclear whether energy is conserved in the large scale of things. Perhaps someone will paste the URL to that web page.

Good luck in your search. I'm also curious about this too. I've been ignoring it for a while due to other priorities but I think its time to get this down straight. Thanks for raising this interesting topic.

Best wishes

Pete

 

[LURCH]

..."Empty space" does not expand...

I was not a part of that conversation, so maybe you could link me to it? At present, it is my belief that this is exactly what the current comological models propose. Objects are moving away from each other, but spacetime itself is literally expanding as well. This is how they account for objects at opposite ends of the known universe moving away from each other at speeds that appear to exceed c. The objects are moving at sub-c speeds relative to their local spacetime.

 

[pervect]

General Relativity teaches us that Space is expanding.

I thought it was pretty clear from the last thread that this was a drastic oversimplification. In particular, GR textbooks will teach no such thing. So why repeat it, especially if the only purpose of repeating it is just to shoot it down? It seems like there is a lot of straw (from this demolished strawman) strewn all over the floor here.

As far as energy conservation goes:

The sci.physics.faq on energy conservation in GR is at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/energy_gr.html

This is probably the link that Lurch was thinking of. I'll quote part of it to attempt to motivate people to read the entire link:

Is Energy Conserved in General Relativity?

In special cases, yes. In general -- it depends on what you mean by "energy", and what you mean by "conserved".

In flat spacetime (the backdrop for special relativity) you can phrase energy conservation in two ways: as a differential equation, or as an equation involving integrals (gory details below). The two formulations are mathematically equivalent. But when you try to generalize this to curved spacetimes (the arena for general relativity) this equivalence breaks down. The differential form extends with nary a hiccup; not so the integral form.

So if you're interpreting energy conservation as a number, the "total amount of energy in the universe", that stays constant with time, GR does not conserve energy for the usual expanding cosmologies (FRW cosmologies).

GR does have well-defined notions of energy for static and stationary space-times, and for asymptotically flat spacetimes. The general FRW expanding universe, however, is neither static, stationary, nor asymptotically flat.

 

[yogi]

I was not a part of that conversation, so maybe you could link me to it? At present, it is my belief that this is exactly what the current comological models propose. Objects are moving away from each other, but spacetime itself is literally expanding as well. This is how they account for objects at opposite ends of the known universe moving away from each other at speeds that appear to exceed c. The objects are moving at sub-c speeds relative to their local spacetime.

There are numerous well qualified writers that hold space is something that is expanding - Robertson is one that comes to mind. Unfortunately these boards are dominated by a different philosophy that is tantamount to Berkelys ideas of space as a sideless box.

As to the issue posed by the thread - there are many cosmological models - in some of these energy is conserved - in others it is not - and in others the energy is increasing. We don't know because we do not have a model that explains beginnings and endings in a manner that can be tested

 

[pervect]

There are numerous well qualified writers that hold space is something that is expanding - Robertson is one that comes to mind. Unfortunately these boards are dominated by a different philosophy that is tantamount to Berkelys ideas of space as a sideless box.

As far as I know, "expanding space", while indeed used by many authors, is mostly used in popularizations. Much like the "rubber sheet" analogy, the idea has definite limitations and can't really be taken too literally. That's why it's a part of popularizations, not really a part of the serious literature on GR.

 

[LURCH]

This is probably the link that Lurch was thinking of.

Well, not actually, but it is a very interesting link and I thank you for incuding it. But I was referring to this...

"General Relativity teaches us that Space is expanding." Ok, so as we discussed in a previous thread, a literal interpretation of this is nonsense. "Empty space" does not expand. Rather, objects move apart.

Robert100, to what "previous thread" are you referring? Like I said earlier, I'm pretty sure the expansion of space itself is the explanation cosmologists generally give for distant objects appearing to travel >c, but I feel like I'm arriving in the middle of a conversation. Maybe this point was dealt with in the other thread.

 

[Robert100]

I was not a part of that conversation, so maybe you could link me to it? At present, it is my belief that this is exactly what the current comological models propose. Objects are moving away from each other, but spacetime itself is literally expanding as well. This is how they account for objects at opposite ends of the known universe moving away from each other at speeds that appear to exceed c. The objects are moving at sub-c speeds relative to their local spacetime.

According to these authors, (a) "empty space" certainly does not expand, and (b) the popular idea that space expands comes from loosely used, poorly defined terminology. Its been discussed here of late, and I haven't seen any serious disagreements with any of its main points.

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/0707.0380

Expanding Space: the Root of all Evil?Matthew J. Francis, Luke A. Barnes, J. Berian James, Geraint F. Lewis
(Submitted on 3 Jul 2007)

Abstract: While it remains the staple of virtually all cosmological teaching, the concept of expanding space in explaining the increasing separation of galaxies has recently come under fire as a dangerous idea whose application leads to the development of confusion and the establishment of misconceptions. In this paper, we develop a notion of expanding space that is completely valid as a framework for the description of the evolution of the universe and whose application allows an intuitive understanding of the influence of universal expansion. We also demonstrate how arguments against the concept in general have failed thus far, as they imbue expanding space with physical properties not consistent with the expectations of general relativity.​

All this is tangential to my main point. Since the volume of the universe increases, and since each volume constains a certain amount of vacuum energy, then what is happening to the total energy content of the universe? It would seem to be increasing. Contrary to what I was taught way back in college, I am learning here that GR is vague about conservation of energy, and that energy simply might not be conserved on a large scale. This, to me, seems bizarre.


Robert

 

[Robert100]

Robert100, to what "previous thread" are you referring? Like I said earlier, I'm pretty sure the expansion of space itself is the explanation cosmologists generally give for distant objects appearing to travel >c, but I feel like I'm arriving in the middle of a conversation. Maybe this point was dealt with in the other thread.

Sorry for being vague. Here are the recent discussions on this topic:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=176380
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=177991


Robert

 

[rbj]

So why doesn't the expansion of space mean increase the total amount of vacuum energy? Wouldn't this violate the law of conservation of energy? (Not that this would bother me all that much; the Big Bang itself seems to violate this law.)

actually, i thought that the Big Bang and expansion of the universe did not violate conservation of energy as long as the rate of expansion was slowing down as it expanded (in a similar manner as the upward speed of the ball you throw up slows down as it is going up). but the problem is, sometime in the 90s they concluded that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing. that disturbs the h*ll outa me.

i queried about this at sci.physics.research once:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci....bbf12/d60ba5d06f1d941b?hl=en#d60ba5d06f1d941b

... and their reply (as i understand it) was that conservation of energy did not really apply with GR and cosmology. i don't get it, but i am woefully inadequate regarding GR, so that might explain it.

 

[LURCH]

Thanks for the links. Haven't read them yet, but that abstract states that space does expand, that the authors have developed that notion in a way that is consistant with observation, and refuted the argumants against the idea. At least, that's how the abstract reads. But, I'm off now to read the article itself, and the previous threads.
see you guys in a while!

 

[LURCH]

OK, I read the article and yes, their position is that space does indeed expand. They even make refference to the superluminal recession rates of very distant objects as a phenominon that cannot be explained as simply "objects moving apart."

actually, i thought that the Big Bang and expansion of the universe did not violate conservation of energy as long as the rate of expansion was slowing down as it expanded (in a similar manner as the upward speed of the ball you throw up slows down as it is going up). but the problem is, sometime in the 90s they concluded that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing. that disturbs the h*ll outa me.

i queried about this at sci.physics.research once:

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.p...0ba5d06f1d941b

... and their reply (as i understand it) was that conservation of energy did not really apply with GR and cosmology. i don't get it, but i am woefully inadequate regarding GR, so that might explain it.

Yeah, the acceleration of expansion was a real shocker for almost everyone, I think. But maybe I can clarify a little about the conservation question (both yours and the one in the thread title).
Short answer; yes, energy is conserved in an expanding universe. Perhaps you've heard of the "heat death" predictions that came out right after it was discovered that the expansion is increasing. This prediction of a universe that gets colder and colder, until there isn't enough energy in anyone place for anything to happen, is a direct result of conservation of energy within an expanding universe. It predicts that the amount of energy will not change (IOW; none will be created or destroyed), while the volume of the universe increases, so the same amount of energy is spread out over more volume, resulting in lower energy-density (IOW; colder temperature).
As for conservation not applying to GR and Cosmology, they were probably referring to the frequent questions about the Oscilating Universe Model (Big Bang followed by Big Crunch, then Bang again, ad infinitum) being a violation of conservation. Any cosmologist you talk to has heard that one alot, or that the Big Bang all by itself constitutes "energy from nothing". The response to this is to point out that the law of conservation applies only within the universe. The Big Bang was an event that took place "before the universe began" (and even this is a term of convenience, since "before" cannnot have any meaning without time, which is a property of the physical universe), and the laws of this universe cannot be apllied to it.
That make any sense at all?

 

[pervect]

Yeah, the acceleration of expansion was a real shocker for almost everyone, I think. But maybe I can clarify a little about the conservation question (both yours and the one in the thread title).
Short answer; yes, energy is conserved in an expanding universe.

I do not believe this is correct. GR does have several concepts of energy and its conservation, but they aren't as simple as assigning a number to the "total mass" (or total energy) of the universe which is constant.

As mentioned in the FAQ, GR always has a local concept of the conservation of energy (in fact, this is built into the field equations). It also has some concept of global conservation, but only under special circumstances. The FRW metric is not one of those special circumstances which has a global conservation law.

Do you have references for this statement about the conservation of energy in an expanding universe?

Aside from the sci.physics.faq which I already posted a link to, MTW also disagrees with this

[quote="Gravitation" pg 457]
There is no such thing as the energy (or angular momentum, or charge) of a closed universe, according to general relativity, and this for a simple reason. To weigh something one needs a platform on which to stand to do the weighing ...

To determine the electric charge of a body, one surrounds it by a large sphere, evaluates the electric field normal to the surface at each point on this sphere, integrates over the sphere, and applies the theorem of Gauss. But within any closed model universe with the topology of a 3-sphere, a Gaussian 2-sphere that is expanded widely enough from one point finds itself collapsing to nothingness at the antipodal point. Also collapsed to nothingness is the attempt to acquire useful information bout the "charge of the universe": the charge is trivially zero.
[/quote]

This is also mentioned on pg 705

The amount of mass-energy in the universe changes from instant to instant as the result of work done by pressure during the expansion

And after giving the formula

(volume) * (density) [itex]\approx[/itex] constant during a matter dominated era (where the pressure is zero) MTW adds:

Here the symbol M can look like mass in the form of matter, and can even be called mass; but one has to recall again (see $19.4 , [ed: my previous quote]) that the concept of total mass-energy of a closed universe has absolutely no well-defined meaning whatsoever

 

[LURCH]

Maybe it's because I'm not reading them in context, but this statement:

There is no such thing as the energy (or angular momentum, or charge) of a closed universe, according to general relativity

and this one:

The amount of mass-energy in the universe changes from instant to instant as the result of work done by pressure during the expansion

seem to be contradictory. If there is no such thing as the mass-energy of the universe, how can it be said to be changing?

At any rate, if the latter statement is true, "the amount of mass-energy in the universe changes from instant to instant," then doesn't that mean that there is no law of conservation? Only things that are in the universe can be said to exist, in any scientific sense. Therefore, if the amount of energy in the universe decreases, then energy that once existed has ceased to exist (been anihilated), and if the amount of energy in the universe increases, then energy which once did not exist has come into existence (been created). If energy can be both created and anihilated, what meaning can "conservation of energy" have?

Now I'm really confused!

 

[pervect]

Think about a sphere of uniform density 1 meter in diameter. Perform a Lorentz boost. The sphere is now a squashed ellispsoid.

It's volume goes down by a factor of 1/gamma due to the squishing effect.

It's density (T00) goes up by a factor of gamma^2 due to the boost. Note that the SR/GR notion of "density" includes all forms of energy, specifically including kinetic energy, this may be different than what you're used to.

Total energy contained in the sphere increases by a factor of gamma, as it should.

So we can see that neither volume, nor density, nor their product (density * volume = energy) is a Lorentz invariant.

There are similar problems with the definition of the "mass of the universe".

To avoid getting hopelessly mired, let's try the following. Consider a series of observers, each moving with the "Hubble flow", i.e. for which the cosmic microwave background radiation appears isotropic.

Using this special reference frame, we can define a "volume" and "density" for the universe. But unless we get this specific, we'll just get raised eyebrows if we start talking about "the" volume or "the" density of the universe. The problem is that volume and density are observer dependent quantities and we have to specify our observer.

So, we get around this issue by specifying an observer. (Another option would be to refine our concepts to avoid coordinate dependence. This route is very fruitful, but a bit advanced, so I won't get into it).

Our observer in this case moves with the Hubble flow (uses synchronous coordinates) What's next?

What's next is that

volume * density (with the above definitions) is constant in a matter dominated universe, but is not constant in a radiation dominated universe (or in any universe with an appreciable amount of radiation).

If you double the scale factor for a matter dominated universe, and increase the volume by a factor of 8, the density drops by a factor of 8, and density * volume stays constant.

If you double the scale factor for a radiation dominated universe, the volume increases by a factor of 8, the density drops by a factor of 16. Volume * density does not stay constant. You can trace this to "redshifting" of the radiation. The product of volume * density drops.

Density * volume^(4/3) stays constant for a radiation dominated universe. (See mtw pg 727).

So if you have a mixture of radiation and matter in your universe, volume * density does not stay constant.

 

[pervect]

Another option would be to refine our concepts to avoid coordinate dependence. This route is very fruitful, but a bit advanced, so I won't get into it.

I decided that it would be worthwhile to get into this, but in a separate post.

Basically, the easiest route to a global notion of energy in GR is via Noether's theorem. Noether's theorem associates energy conservation with a "time translation symmetry", and momentum conservation with a "space translation symmetry".

Noether's theorem is based on and requires that the laws of physics be formulated in terms of an action principle. GR has such a formulation, so Noether's theorem applies to GR. In fact, it was the vexing problems of energy conservation in GR that led Hilbert to ask Emily Noether to work on the problem. For some historical background mixed with the mathematics, see for instance

http://www.physics.ucla.edu/~cwp/articles/noether.asg/noether.html

If your metric has a time translation symmetry, you're all set. This gives you one of the sorts of global energy that is defined in GR, the Komar Energy (aka Komar mass).

If your metric doesn't have a time translation symmetry, you may still be able to get time translation symmetries "at infinity".

This yields a couple of different notions of energy, the ADM energy (for spatial infinity), and the Bondi energy (for null infinity). Similarly, spatial translations at infinity (of whatever sort) yield a notion of conserved momentum for a system.

Unfortunately, the standard FRW models don't have any time translation symmetry, nor do they have the asymptotically flat structure at infinity necessary to define an ADM or Bondi energy.

In any event, when the necessary requirements are met (a time translation symmetry for Komar energy, an asymptotically flat spacetime for ADM or Bondi energy), one can get a specific energy and momentum just by writing down the metric, and any pair of metrics that are related by a simple coordinate variable substitution (more technically, by a diffeomorphism) will give the same energy and momentum. This defines the energy and momentum of a system in a manner that is independent of any particular "observer" or coordinate system, which is in the end much less confusing to talk about, though unfortunately it takes a while to master the necessary background.

These coordinate independent approaches are the current standard way of approaching energy in GR, and they do not yield any notion of "total energy" for a FRW space-time.

The approaches I outlined earlier are somewhat interesting, but because they rely on "special" coordinates they aren't very general or ultimately very convincing. So most people (including for example MTW) don't call the number that you get out of this process "the energy" or "the mass" of the universe, because they rely on singling out "special" coordinates for their defintion. However, they are useful enough that MTW wanted to talk about them anyway.

 

[pmb_phy]

I thought it was pretty clear from the last thread that this was a drastic oversimplification. In particular, GR textbooks will teach no such thing.

A quick look in a few GR text confirms that to that extent.

So why repeat it, ...

Perhaps he's seeking more opinions, i.e. for someone else to jump in? I personally don't see a problem of phrasing it that way. The expansion of the universe is defined by the increasing distances between galaxies. However if one were to ask for a rigorous definition of space then I believe the answer would be consistent with saying that space is expanding ... in my very humble opinion that is.

Best regards

Pete

 

[pervect]

Perhaps he's seeking more opinions, i.e. for someone else to jump in? I personally don't see a problem of phrasing it that way. The expansion of the universe is defined by the increasing distances between galaxies. However if one were to ask for a rigorous definition of space then I believe the answer would be consistent with saying that space is expanding ... in my very humble opinion that is.

Best regards

Pete

I'm not sure what he's after. Personally I think that "space is expanding" is an attempt to popularize GR that doesn't quite work if you take it too literally.
Which actually appears to be more or less what the OP said:

General Relativity teaches us that Space is expanding." Ok, so as we discussed in a previous thread, a literal interpretation of this is nonsense.

I would not word it quite as strongly as the OP did, though. The idea of expanding space has received enough airtime that it's not really "nonsense", even if it isn't all that good of an explanation when taken too seriously.

I'm not even sure why this popularization is so popular. It looks like this didn't get hashed out well enough last time (I thought that it did, and didn't want to cover the same ground again and hijack the thread), but apparently people still want to argue about it.

Let's take a look at a typical use of it (in a popular news report):

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html

In terms of special relativity, Hubble's law appears to be a paradox. But in general relativity we interpret the apparent recession as being due to space expanding (the old raisins in a rising fruit loaf analogy). The galaxies themselves are not moving through space (at least not very much), but the space itself is growing so they appear to be moving apart. There is nothing in special or general relativity to prevent this apparent velocity from exceeding the speed of light. No faster-than-light signals can be sent via this mechanism, and it does not lead to any paradoxes

So the idea behind the popularization seems to be to explain how recession velocities can be greater than 'c'. This explanation really isn't very good.

In a popular news article, aimed at the lay audience, the basic idea appears to be to to impart some sort of general understanding, even if it's not totally accurate, rather than to get into all the fine technical details.

It is probably IS simpler to use the above than getting into the muddle of the difference between velocity as a vector in a tangent space, and velocity as the generalized rate of change of any sort of distance with respect to any sort of time coordinate. The first sort of "velocity" is much more physical, will always be lower than 'c' at any point, and has the problem that you can't compare two velocities at different points in a curved space-time unless you define some mechanism to do so, such as both a means of parallel transport (defined by the metric, but probably not familiar to readers without a strong background in GR or differental geometry) AND a particular path along which the velocities are to be parallel transported.

For an example of this sort of usage, See for instance Baez's remarks in http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/einstein/node2.html )

In general relativity, we cannot even talk about relative velocities, except for two particles at the same point of spacetime -- that is, at the same place at the same instant. The reason is that in general relativity, we take very seriously the notion that a vector is a little arrow sitting at a particular point in spacetime. To compare vectors at different points of spacetime, we must carry one over to the other. The process of carrying a vector along a path without turning or stretching it is called `parallel transport'. When spacetime is curved, the result of parallel transport from one point to another depends on the path taken! In fact, this is the very definition of what it means for spacetime to be curved. Thus it is ambiguous to ask whether two particles have the same velocity vector unless they are at the same point of spacetime.

But Baez's defintion of velocity, even though it is much more physical, is not the sort that's used in Hubble's law.

The definition of velocity used in Hubble's law is a "velocity" by the fact that it's the rate of change of some distance coordinate with respect to some time coordinate. Like all such "coordinate velocities", it is not very physical, does not have any physical limit on its value.

Hubble's law is highly dependent on the usage of a particular set of coordinates, it can even be used to define those coordinates ala Ned Wright:

Hubble law defines a special frame of reference at any point in the Universe. An observer with a large motion with respect to the Hubble flow would measure blueshifts in front and large redshifts behind, instead of the same redshifts proportional to distance in all directions. Thus we can measure our motion relative to the Hubble flow, which is also our motion relative to the observable Universe. A comoving observer is at rest in this special frame of reference

OK, we now return you to the next part of the question, which is just about as confused as the first, the issue of energy and it's conservation in GR. Or not - it depends on what people (and the OP in particular) really want to talk about.

 

[Robert100]

Redirecting to the original question

The many responses to my question have been fascinating, but problematic. No one addressed the actual question!

This happens quite often. It concerns me that physicists often argue with each other because they don't listen to each other. They hear the bits that interest them, and miss the subtle points that are outside their area of interest, even though these subtle points are the heart of the issue.

The many responses here are about general relativity and conservation of energy. But my actual question was about what relativity implied about a quantum mechanical phenomenon.

Since the volume of the universe increases, and each volume contains a certain minimum amount of vacuum energy, then what is happening to the total energy content of the universe?

This is about QM and vacuum energy. How can the total energy of the universe be constant, if the energy per cubic meter is constant, and the number of cubic meters is increasing? General relativity describes how the universe increases in volume, but seems to says nothing about QM.

There may be a very simple answer. Or there may even be a problem with my question (I might be making some hidden assumption which renders my question invalid, or not precisely phrased enough to answer.) But nonetheless it appears as if my initial question hasn't been addressed at all.

Robert

 

[pervect]

Or there may even be a problem with my question I might be making some hidden assumption which renders my question invalid, or not precisely phrased enough to answer.
Robert

Bingo. There is a problem with your question which makes your question invalid.

Given that GR offers us no definition for "the energy of the universe" (at least not a universe with a FRW metric), how can you possibly expect us to answer a question about what happens to said "energy of the universe" other than having us point out that it is not defined?

You also might want to think about how productive it is to criticize physicists for "not understanding your questions" when presumably it is the people you think of as "physicists" who are answering them?

I suspect that if you thought about it, you could find a way to eliminate a lot of extra "baggage" from your questions that would make them easier to ansewr, and less prone to digressions. This is something that you'll never accomplish (assuming you are interested in accomplishing it) if you place all the blame on "physicists" for their answers and don't stop to consider how your questions could have been improved to avoid digressions.

 

[marcus]

...

Since the volume of the universe increases, and each volume contains a certain minimum amount of vacuum energy, then what is happening to the total energy content of the universe?

This is about QM and vacuum energy. How can the total energy of the universe be constant, if the energy per cubic meter is constant, and the number of cubic meters is increasing? ...

Personally I don't expect it to be constant (or even well-defined, as Pervect points out)
I recall here at PF we had this sort of discussion back in 2003 not about the vacuum energy but about the CMB. the CMB has lost 999 percent of its energy since it was released (the redshift is about 1100, call it roughly 1000 so each one of those CMB photons only has 1/1000 of its original energy due to wavelength stretching).

the same thing with "dark energy", which some people equate with vacuum energy. it appears to have a constant density, so making more cubic meters makes more energy (that nobody pays for).

the same thing with any inflation scenario that involves an "inflaton" field (as most inflation stories do). Inflatons egregiously violate energy conservation, because they have a near-constant energy density. and they cause very rapid expansion

Some people have a dreadful time accepting that conservation of energy doesn't apply globally in cosmology. Several parts of the story involve stupendous gigantic humongous violations of the conservation "law". But I don't believe in such a general global "law". As Pervect points out you don't get one in the context of Gen Rel. Maybe in the future when we replace Gen Rel with something better...

Maybe the real conservation law involves an observer who looks at an isolated system. In the case of the universe who could that possibly be?
The conservation law says you can't build a PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE.
Who is going to build a perpetual motion machine using the expansion of space to perform useful work? Maybe the law isn't broken unless someone can actually harness it. Suppose I take a pragmatist view. Laws don't function in the abstract. They have an operational meaning for you and me, governing what we can do and not do and what we can expect as the results.

This may be something that we can work out. The most informative thing I've seen about this is Reuter's talk at Loops 07. He explains inflation WITHOUT AN INFLATON and without any energy-condition-violating exotic matter. And he also has an explanation for REHEATING that creates the stuff to make stars without any inflaton having to decay. Reuter comes close to formulating a cosmology without massive non-compliance.

If you want links to his slides (pdf) and audio (mp3) let me or one of the others know.

 

[LURCH]

Well Robert, this was certainly an interesting question and has brought up a lot of information I've not heard before. I suppose the only answer to your orignal question is that it depends on which expanding universe.
In every uniaverse I've seen, the expansion of the universe result in a corresponding cooling. This is what the universe is like if conservation of energy is true.
However, there are appearently cosmological models in which energy can be created, but this model clearly violates conservation. This does not mean that the models are invalid, but only that either the model or the law of conservation will have to be thrown out.
As for this:

Since the volume of the universe increases, and each volume contains a certain minimum amount of vacuum energy, then what is happening to the total energy content of the universe?... How can the total energy of the universe be constant, if the energy per cubic meter is constant, and the number of cubic meters is increasing?

Obviously, it can't. In a universe where energy is conserved, the energy per cubic meter decreases as the number of cubic meters increases. This is a universe that cools as it expands, and I still believe that this is the universe in which we live. It would appear, however, that not everyone thinks so.
But this question requires the assumption that all areas of "vacuum" are already at the minimum vacuum energy, and can't get any colder. I do not think that is the case.
This might also be an assumption:

General relativity describes how the universe increases in volume, but seems to says nothing about QM.

GR never seems to say too terribly much about QM, but when looking at Hawking Radiation we see that the amount of vacuum energy at the Evetn Horizon is a result of the energy within the Black Hole (an inderect result; the stresses of gravitational curvature on the vacuum enable that area of space to produce a larger number of virtual particles). As the virtual particles escape into reality, the Black Hole looses mass because the mass to make that partcle had to come from somewhere, it couldn't just be created ex nihilo. So it would seem that GR is saying that the energy of the avcuum is part of the energy that exists within the universe, and that the vacuum itself cannot create new energy.

 

[rbj]

Well Robert, this was certainly an interesting question and has brought up a lot of information I've not heard before. I suppose the only answer to your orignal question is that it depends on which expanding universe.
In every uniaverse I've seen, the expansion of the universe result in a corresponding cooling. This is what the universe is like if conservation of energy is true. .

i (a different robert) still don't see how any universe, even one that is cooling, can have its expansion accelerating consistently in time if energy is conserved. how does the heat get channeled into that expansion (against gravity)? what happens at head death? does this accelerated expansion stop accelerating and the expansion of the universe is just "coasting"?

 

[pervect]

I ran across another quote by Schutz that addresses the issue of energy conservation in GR that is online:http://www.gravityfromthegroundup.org/pdf/timeenergy.pdf

When we come to consider cosmology – the study of the Universe
as a whole – and the observed expansion of the Universe, we will see how
we lose the law of energy conservation: as the Universe expands, its energy simply disappears.

 

[LURCH]

So by that quote energy is being detroyed, but not created (so far, most of us have been talking about the creation of energy that an expanding universe would require).

 

[Robert100]

Trying to clarify my question yet again

Bingo. There is a problem with your question which makes your question invalid.

Given that GR offers us no definition for "the energy of the universe" (at least not a universe with a FRW metric), how can you possibly expect us to answer a question about what happens to said "energy of the universe" other than having us point out that it is not defined?

Thank you! This addresses at least half of my question. But, correct me if I am wrong, GR tells us nothing at all about quantum mechanics, or about the vacuum energy predicted by QM. Again, correct me if I am mistaken, but GR doesn't predict the Casimir effect (which reveals a type of vacuum energy).

So, in essence, I am asking a different question than the one that you are answering. I really am not asking about the implications of GR by itself, which everyone else here seems totally focused on. Rather, I am merely assuming that GR is more or less correct (unified field theories not yet being available), and asking a question that proceeds from this:

There is energy per cubic meter. QM teaches us this. And GR teaches us that the universe is getting larger in volume (at least for this epoch in cosmic history, and likely for a lot longer, maybe forever.) So with more and more volume filled with vacuum energy, doesn't this imply that the total energy of the universe is always increasing?

You also might want to think about how productive it is to criticize physicists for "not understanding your questions" when presumably it is the people you think of as "physicists" who are answering them?

I do appreciate that physicists have taken the time to answer me. But the problem is that physicists have not been answering my questions, but rather seem to have misunderstood them, or understood them in a much more limited way than was intended. Just re-read my initial and follow-up posts, and look at most of the answers. They misunderstood my question! You were the first one to address one of the imporant issues I was asking about (the problem with my question having hidden assumptions! Most questions do.)

I'm hoping that someone will think about QM, and address what I see as the core issue. There are many possible answers I can think of, such as:

(A) We postulate that the vacuum energy is entirely unrelated to anything in GR. GR thus really tells us nothing about the total energy of the universe, and this is one of its major limitations.

(B) We postulate that the vacuum energy is related to anything in GR. GR thus does tell us something about the total energy of the universe.

(B1) Perhaps this tells us that as the universe gets bigger, energy lost in some way due to expansion is gained as more vacuum energy. Total energy may thus be constant.

(B2) Perhaps this tells us that as the universe gets bigger, there really is more and more energy in the universe. Conservation of energy is thus being violated on a massive scale, all the time, but over regions so large that we don't observe this, and in a way that isn't useful to do work. (i.e. we can't use this to make a perpetual motion machine.)

(C) Something else I haven't thought of, which is much more likely.

Is my question more clear? I am not focusing on GR alone. This line of reasoning ends up being about the implications of QM. I have looked for papers on this subject, but so far have found none. I am sure that there is something in the literature out there, but I haven't been able to find a narrow enough search to let me find a paper that addresses my question.

Robert

 

[marcus]

I like both B1 and B2

(B1) Perhaps this tells us that as the universe gets bigger, energy lost in some way due to expansion is gained as more vacuum energy. Total energy may thus be constant.

(B2) Perhaps this tells us that as the universe gets bigger, there really is more and more energy in the universe. Conservation of energy is thus being violated on a massive scale, all the time, but over regions so large that we don't observe this, and in a way that isn't useful to do work. (i.e. we can't use this to make a perpetual motion machine.)

I'm sympathetic to B1 because I played around with it some here at PF in 2003 or thereabouts. I called it the "Marcus Conjecture" (just as a joke.)

I calculated the energy lost by the redshifting of CMB photons starting out in some volume of space----as that space expanded (the calculation is simple and would be somewhere in PF archives I suppose)

I calculated the energy gained just by the expansion of that same volume of space, assuming a constant darkenergy density of 0.6 joules per cubic kilometer (the present measured value)

The amount lost and the amount gained were same order magnitude. Maybe they differed by a factor of 2. I don't recall. they didnt exactly match but they were same ballpark.

Maybe some people were amused. Nobody I cared about their opinion was impressed. A few people made fun of me for calling it "Marcus Conjecture"

I had no MECHANISM I could propose for how the lost energy supplied the gained energy.

I figured that ultimately people would only find a mechanism like that if they mastered quantum gravity (the fundamental microscopic structure of space and how it interacts with matter). So I abandoned B1 (it is a nice question but one not ready to be answered by humans yet )
====================

I also like what you give here as B2. I think it is a good idea.

I suspect that to be a scientist is to have an intuitive sense of what questions can productively be address, and to avoid wasting too much time crying from the rooftops about questions that aren't ready to be answered yet. Patience is important. All in good time.
===================

I sympathize with both the ideas you express here, both B1 and B2. I don't blame you for asking them!

Maybe right now I slightly favor B2 over B1 (and B3 is an intelligent alternative too).

But they are not RIPE. Wait a little. Maybe in your lifetime. (Maybe sooner than I expect---I got strong hints from Martin Reuter's talk at Loops 07 about this, he has a certain picture on page 17 or right before the section called "RG improved Cosmology". He is describing how a decrease in Lambda transfers energy to a test particle of matter. These things are preliminary, you have to avoid getting excited and let them develop.)

 

[Robert100]

Personally I don't expect it to be constant (or even well-defined, as Pervect points out.)...we had this sort of discussion back in 2003 not about the vacuum energy but about the CMB. the CMB has lost 999 percent of its energy since it was released (the redshift is about 1100, call it roughly 1000 so each one of those CMB photons only has 1/1000 of its original energy due to wavelength stretching). the same thing with "dark energy", which some people equate with vacuum energy. it appears to have a constant density, so making more cubic meters makes more energy (that nobody pays for).

Huzzah! So I'm not crazy, and someone else has also noticed this! Most people responding in this thread brought up good and interesting points, but they missed the precise thrust of my question (except you, and Prevect's helpful point about questions with hidden assumptions!)

the same thing with any inflation scenario that involves an "inflaton" field (as most inflation stories do). Inflatons egregiously violate energy conservation, because they have a near-constant energy density. and they cause very rapid expansion.

Some people have a dreadful time accepting that conservation of energy doesn't apply globally in cosmology. Several parts of the story involve stupendous gigantic humongous violations of the conservation "law". But I don't believe in such a general global "law". As Pervect points out you don't get one in the context of Gen Rel. Maybe in the future when we replace Gen Rel with something better...

This is a key point. As Gordon Kane writes in "The Particle Garden", all human created theories have an effective range. Outside of this range their predictions are, at best, incorrect, and often, totally off base. Einstein himself knew from day one that General Relativity (GR) had its own effective domain, so do we (see our "Beyond the Standard Model" forum.) Thus, should it really surprise us that on cosmic , conservation of energy within our universe could (just maybe) be violated?

If any of the theories about branes or multiple universes turn out to be correct (and we don't have to limit ourselves to anything related to superstring theories) then perhaps conservation of energy in our universe is violated, but not overall. That is, acceleration of our universe may be drawing off energy from a nearby universe/brane/flatworld, etc. So energy (in one form or another) in the overall bulk is conserved, but not within anyone particular universe. (This reminds me Steinhardt's proposal that our universe began as a collision between two branes. )

http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/

Robert

 

[Jorrie]

Cosmic energy loss/gain

I calculated the energy lost by the redshifting of CMB photons starting out in some volume of space----as that space expanded (the calculation is simple and would be somewhere in PF archives I suppose)

I calculated the energy gained just by the expansion of that same volume of space, assuming a constant darkenergy density of 0.6 joules per cubic kilometer (the present measured value).

Out of curiosity, I once calculated the (what I called) 'rest energy' of the observable universe over time since the end of inflation until well into the future. The expansion factor vs. time I got by the standard procedure of integrating the highly normalized Friedmann equation for a flat universe: [itex]\dot{a}^2 = H_0^2[\Omega_m/a+\Omega_r/a^2+\Omega_v a^2][/tex].

For every value a I then calculated the density of each energy component, using the standard 1/a^4 for radiation, 1/a^3 for matter and keeping [itex]\rho_v[/tex] constant. Adding up the energy densities and multiplying by the volume of the observable universe for that a, I got to the 'rest energy' at that time. The graph is attached.

Question: is this a valid method for obtaining the 'rest energy' of a piece of space in the Lambda-CDM scenario?

If so, it appears that the 'rest energy' only remained roughly constant during the matter dominated epoch, from some 1 million to some 5 billion years or so. Before that it was 'diluted' by the redshift and after that increased by the cosmological constant.

 

[pervect]

You've definitely computed some sort of number. The physical significance of this number is somewhat questionable. You might want to question why you consider this number to represent any sort of "energy".

Note that "rest energy" is not conserved in any event - consider blowing up an atomic bomb, for instance. "Rest energy" gets turned into kinetic energy, one cannot meaningfully separate out "rest energy" from kinetic energy without specifying some sort of favored coordinate system. If one does throw out all concepts of "kinetic energy" (by not including them in the sum) one doesn't expect the resulting quantity to be conserved, one knows that rest energy can be inter-converted to kinetic energy and that when such conversion happens kinetic energy must be included.

Another thing missing from your formula for "energy" would be any concept of "gravitational binding energy". For instance, the Newtonian gravitational binding energy of a sphere of mass M depends on its radius, R, by the formula

E = -G M^2 / rSo in essence you've computed a number to represent a quantity that you already know (or, should know, with a little thought) isn't conserved, and found that the universe as a whole doesn't conserve it.

If your goal is to come up with a conserved energy of the universe, these flaws unfortunately can't be repaired unless you find a way around Noether's theorem.

For some past discussions on some similar issues, including some added material on a related topic known as quasi-local energy, you might try the old PF thread:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=142298

I haven't seen Garth around here for a while, he has a published theory that is NOT GR with a well-defined energy. The theory incorporates a scalar field that gives the theory a "preferred frame", which is what allows it to get around Noether's theorem. Unfortunately, last I heard it appeared very likely that this theory will be falsified by GP-B.

 

[Jorrie]

Cosmic static and binding energies?

Thanks pervect.

You've definitely computed some sort of number. The physical significance of this number is somewhat questionable. You might want to question why you consider this number to represent any sort of "energy".

I understand that 'rest energy' in this context is problematic but why I considered 'this number to represent any sort of "energy"' is probably not so problematic. Since we know the co-moving size and the critical energy density of the observable universe, we can easily calculate a present 'static' energy component of 2.62E+71 Joule for the observable universe. Is it not reasonable to say that this number represents some valid component of the total energy?

OK, the frame dependence remains, but it may be valid in our 'observational frame', whatever that means. Anyway, the next step could be to calculate the negative gravitational binding energy from this value. You said:

Another thing missing from your formula for "energy" would be any concept of "gravitational binding energy". For instance, the Newtonian gravitational binding energy of a sphere of mass M depends on its radius, R, by the formula

E = -G M^2 / r

Based on this and the 2.62E+71 Joule (or 2.92E+54 kg) 'static energy' of the observable universe and taking the co-moving radius as 46 Gly, or 4.35E+26 m, I get a present binding energy of -1.30E+72 Joule.

If this is correct, can one then conclude that the positive energy of expansion (the 'kinetic' energy?) is 1.30E+72 Joule, so that the total (binding + expansion) energy of the observable universe is zero for the Omega=1 case?

If all the above make any sense, (which I doubt somehow) one can calculate the variable static and expansion energies over the history of the universe as per the attached graph. This is an "engineering approach", which I hope is not considered too "agricultural"!

 

[pervect]

OK, the frame dependence remains, but it may be valid in our 'observational frame', whatever that means. Anyway, the next step could be to calculate the negative gravitational binding energy from this value. You said:

If this is correct, can one then conclude that the positive energy of expansion (the 'kinetic' energy?) is 1.30E+72 Joule, so that the total (binding + expansion) energy of the observable universe is zero for the Omega=1 case?

If all the above make any sense, (which I doubt somehow) one can calculate the variable static and expansion energies over the history of the universe as per the attached graph. This is an "engineering approach", which I hope is not considered too "agricultural"!

How to put this: I would not recommend trying to get the above analysis published in a peer-reviewed journal

Note that the formula I gave for binding energy was a Newtonian formula - not a GR formula. As I have been trying to explain, a GR formula just doesn't exist, at least not for the case of the universe - there are many situations in which GR does define an energy, the universe as a whole happens not to be one of them.

So you're (slightly) better off not including the binding energy rather than applying a Newtonian formula in an area where you know it won't give the right answer. (It would be best if this were a conscious omission). But basically the whole approach is so badly flawed as to be not worth very much, and if you talk to anyone knowledgeable about GR about the "energy of the universe" you shouldn't be too surprised if you get negative reactions or "funny looks".

 

[Jorrie]

So you're (slightly) better off not including the binding energy rather than applying a Newtonian formula in an area where you know it won't give the right answer. (It would be best if this were a conscious omission). But basically the whole approach is so badly flawed as to be not worth very much, and if you talk to anyone knowledgeable about GR about the "energy of the universe" you shouldn't be too surprised if you get negative reactions or "funny looks".

OK, thanks again, I expected something to this effect.

One final question: if I drop the 'observable universe' as a basis and just consider a large, finite region that is fairly homogeneous, would the [edit: 'evolution over time of the'] 'static energy' (including all forms) still be fundamentally flawed as a concept?