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arXiv · hep-ph/0206016

Vacuum Hydrodynamics

P. M. Stevenson
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Abstract

The Higgs vacuum -- with its constant background field -- is not `empty' but is a kind of medium. Any ordinary medium, viewed at sufficiently long length scales, has a hydrodynamic description and can propagate sound waves. The vacuum medium is unusual; the speed of sound is formally infinite and there is no linear sound-wave regime. Instead, long-wavelength disturbances are described by some intrinsically nonlinear hydrodynamic equations.

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P. M. Stevenson. 2002-06-03. Vacuum Hydrodynamics. https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0206016

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