Quantum noise in time-dependent media and cosmic expansion

Abstract

In spatially uniform, but time-dependent dielectric media with equal electric and magnetic response, classical electromagnetic waves propagate exactly like in empty, flat space with transformed time, called conformal time, and so do quantum fluctuations. In empty, flat space the renormalized vacuum energy is exactly zero, but not in time-dependent media, as we show in this paper. This is because renormalization is local and causal, and so cannot compensate fully for the transformation to conformal time. The expanding universe appears as such a medium to the electromagnetic field. We show that the vacuum energy during cosmic expansion effectively reduces the weights of radiation and matter by characteristic factors. This quantum buoyancy naturally resolves the Hubble tension, the discrepancy between the measured and the inferred Hubble constant, and it might resolve other cosmological tensions as well.