Negative-energy matter as missing positive vacuum energy

The key insight I had already proposed in my first paper of 2006 and which eventually allowed me to develop a truly consistent theory of gravitation integrating the concept of negative-energy matter is that the presence of matter with a given energy sign in a certain location is always equivalent to a local absence of energy of opposite sign from the vacuum. Yet, this is the hypothesis that is the most difficult to accept about the model I proposed, because it looks like it would make the measure of matter energy somewhat imprecise and arbitrary. I must admit that this is how I, myself, originally felt about the idea when I began to realize the enormous potential it held for solving many problems in relativity theory and cosmology. But I came to understand that, in fact, the description of matter and radiation energy with a given energy sign as a local absence of energy of opposite sign from the otherwise uniform distribution of zero-point vacuum fluctuations is not more, but actually less arbitrary than the conventional description.

The truth is that we always measure energy relative to some arbitrarily-fixed reference point, just like we measure velocity relative to a given, arbitrarily-chosen reference system. What I proposed is merely that the presence of a negative-energy particle is equivalent to the absence of a similar amount of positive energy in the vacuum and that it is relative to the natural level of energy provided by quantum gravitation that this measure of missing energy is to be defined. Energy is always fluctuating from a quantum-mechanical viewpoint and this is also true in the case where matter energy is defined relative to the maximum energy of zero-point vacuum fluctuations, but there is no more fluctuation involved here as there would be from a conventional viewpoint and energy remains as precisely defined a physical attribute as it can be, even though its magnitude is no longer determined relative to the zero level of energy itself, but relative to the natural energy scale set by gravitation theory (in a quantum-mechanical context).

The fact that the conventional zero-point of energy may appear to constitute a more absolute reference point is not an advantage in a relativistic context where such non-relational measures of physical attributes are usually forbidden. But in the context of the generalized gravitation theory I developed, it emerges that the energy of empty space itself is defined as being the outcome of an equilibrium between two opposite contributions of maximum magnitude. Therefore, it becomes all the more appropriate to use some theoretically significant measure of vacuum energy as a reference for determining the energy of matter and radiation, given that the presence of ‘real’ matter in a fluctuating quantum-mechanical vacuum filled with virtual pairs can only be distinguished as a result of the fact that it modifies the equilibrium that prevails when space is devoid of any matter.

Even though the effects of the presence of negative-energy matter can only be made conspicuous to positive-energy observers when its density differs locally from its average, cosmic value (as a consequence of the very fact that negative-energy matter must be defined as missing positive vacuum energy, for reasons I have explained in the above mentioned report), this does not make those measures of energy more imprecise or indefinite, because nothing forbids this average density of energy to be as precisely defined as a conventional zero-point of energy, even though its actual value may remain unknown to human observers to a certain extent due to practical limitations. Thus, I believe that the time has come to recognize that our conventional conception of matter energy must be tied in more closely with a certain description of vacuum energy that is made necessary by quantum theory in the context of a generalization of relativity theory that can accommodate the presence of negative-energy matter.