The gravity-induced vacuum dominance effect: recent developments

 

 

We review the gravity-induced vacuum dominance effect. Once the effect is triggered, the energy density of a neutron star would be overwhelmed by the vacuum energy density in few milliseconds possibly leading to a “catastrophic” event. Furthermore, the vacuum fluctuations built up during the unstable epoch are expected to lead eventually to a particle burst. We emphasize that such particle creation will occur even in the adiabatic limit, and therefore is quite distinct from the usual particle creation due to the change in the background geometry.  The amount of created particles mostly depends on the duration of the unstable epoch and final stationary configuration. Finally, we establish a connection between this quantum effect and the classical instability identified in some engineering systems.