ISSUES WITH VACUUM ENERGY AS THE ORIGIN OF DARK ENERGY
In this paper, we address some of the issues raised in the literature about the conflict between a large vacuum energy density, a priori predicted by quantum field theory, and the observed dark energy which must be the energy of vacuum or include it. We present a number of arguments against this claim and in favor of a null vacuum energy. They are based on the following arguments: A new definition for the vacuum in quantum field theory as a frame-independent coherent state; results from a detailed study of condensation of scalar fields in Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) background performed in a previous work; and our present knowledge about the Standard Model of particle physics. One of the predictions of these arguments is the confinement of nonzero expectation value of Higgs field to scales roughly comparable with the width of electroweak gauge bosons or shorter. If the observation of Higgs by the LHC is confirmed, accumulation of relevant events and their energy dependence in near future should allow us to measure the spatial extend of the Higgs condensate.