If the vacuum is a thermodynamic system then the sum of its internal energy and the product of its pressure and its volume is called the vacuum enthalpy. In this case, the internal energy of the vacuum is analogous to potential energy, while the product of pressure and volume is analogous to kinetic energy. By this classification, the vacuum enthalpy is defined as the total energy of the quantum vacuum fluctuations of the squares of zero-point energies. It is properly described by a quantum theory of the space-time continuum.
A very big “IF” that the product of vacuum pressure and vacuum volume is expressed by an equation of state of the vacuum similar to that given for ideal gas. This idealization must certainly obey Boyle’s law of the vacuum such that the internal energy is independent of the volume, also obeying Joule’s law, as required by the kinetic theory, equivalently implying that the inter-vacuum attractions are negligible and each quantum has negligible volume, thus obeying Dalton’s law of partial pressure, Gay-Lussac’s law, and Avogadro’s hypothesis exactly. On the other hand, for real gases these are obeyed as their pressure approaches zero. The equation of state for 1 quantum of the vacuum is given by pV=kT where k is simply Boltzmann’s constant iff Avogadro’s constant is exactly equal to unity. Consequently, this is defined as the principle of equipartition of vacuum energy. This value is exactly twice that given for gases for the average energy of each degree of freedom.


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