Could Dark Matter and Dark Energy Be Different Effects of a Dynamic Vacuum?
I would like to present a speculative idea and ask people with a stronger background in physics whether there are fundamental reasons why it could not work.
First, an important disclaimer: I am not a physicist. I am an amateur interested in cosmology, and this is not a mathematical theory. I have been reading papers related to quantum vacuum fluctuations, gravitational particle creation, vacuum polarization and cosmological particle creation, but it is entirely possible that I have misunderstood some of them.
I am therefore not claiming that the papers cited below prove my hypothesis. I am using them only to identify pieces of established or proposed physics that appear, to my amateur understanding, to have similarities to individual parts of the idea.
The hypothesis in brief
My basic assumptions are:
The quantum vacuum may have a locally varying physical state rather than behaving as an identical passive background everywhere.
Matter, energy and gravitational disturbances may influence this local vacuum/spacetime state.
Certain configurations of this state might themselves produce a gravitational effect, even without a corresponding concentration of ordinary matter.
Such a gravitational vacuum structure could attract ordinary matter. The accumulated matter would then strengthen the gravitational well, creating feedback.
At the opposite extreme, a sufficiently depleted, stretched or otherwise extreme vacuum state might become unstable and convert some vacuum/field energy into real particle excitations.
The newly created energy or particles would themselves gravitate and modify the local state of spacetime, producing another feedback mechanism.
Different regimes of this same underlying process might contribute to phenomena currently modeled separately as dark matter and dark energy.
If matter/energy creation becomes increasingly important in sufficiently depleted regions, extreme cosmic dilution might eventually trigger its own counteracting mechanism, potentially changing the usual assumptions about the very long-term evolution of the Universe.
I use words such as "density", "pressure", "compression" and "depletion" only as intuitive analogies. I am not claiming that spacetime is literally a classical fluid. A proper theory would need to identify the actual physical quantity or field involved.
1. A locally varying vacuum/spacetime state
The starting point of my intuition is that spacetime should perhaps not be imagined as a perfectly uniform passive container.
Matter affects spacetime geometry. Gravitational waves demonstrate that changes in geometry can propagate. Quantum field theory also does not describe the vacuum as classical "nothing".
This made me wonder whether there could be some local physical state of the vacuum/spacetime which, for the purpose of discussion, I will call:
S(x,t)
I am deliberately not defining S as ordinary mass density. It could represent some combination of vacuum state, field configuration, curvature or something else entirely.
One visual analogy I use is a mixture of fluids with different densities surrounding a dense object. The analogy is not intended literally. It merely helps me imagine a spatially varying state around concentrations of matter.
Related literature
Wang and Unruh discuss vacuum stress-energy and spacetime as being highly inhomogeneous and fluctuating on very small scales, relating this to Wheeler's idea of "spacetime foam":
Q. Wang and W. G. Unruh,
Vacuum fluctuation, microcyclic universes, and the cosmological constant problem,
Physical Review D 102, 023537 (2020).
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.102.023537
They consider microscopic regions undergoing expansion and contraction, with vacuum fluctuations influencing the resulting dynamics.
Important: This is only my amateur understanding of the paper, and I may have misunderstood it. I am NOT claiming that Wang and Unruh propose my variable S(x,t), nor that they describe vacuum as having the kind of "density" I am imagining. Their work only seems relevant to me because it challenges the picture of the vacuum and spacetime as perfectly smooth on all scales.
2. Dynamic spacetime can participate in particle creation
The next part originally seemed highly speculative to me, but I discovered that the general phenomenon already exists in quantum field theory in curved spacetime.
Leonard Parker showed that quantum fields in an expanding universe can undergo gravitational particle creation. Modern reviews describe cosmological gravitational particle production as particle production caused by quantum fields evolving in a time-dependent gravitational background.
Relevant references include:
L. Parker's original work beginning with his 1966 thesis, The Creation of Particles in an Expanding Universe.
L. H. Ford,
Cosmological particle production: a review,
Reports on Progress in Physics 84 (2021).
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6633/ac1b23
The 2024 Review of Modern Physics article:
Cosmological gravitational particle production and its implications for cosmological relics,
Reviews of Modern Physics 96, 045005 (2024).
DOI: 10.1103/RevModPhys.96.045005
The latter describes cosmological gravitational particle production as a consequence of quantum fields in time-dependent backgrounds and discusses the resulting particle abundances and possible observational consequences.
Therefore the broad relationship
\text{dynamic spacetime}
\rightarrow
\text{quantum field excitation / particle creation}
appears to be established physics.
Again, this is my amateur understanding of these sources and I may be interpreting them incorrectly. In particular, Parker particle creation does NOT establish my proposed threshold mechanism below. I only take it as evidence that the broader concept "changing spacetime can be connected with the production of particles" is physically meaningful.
3. My proposed critical vacuum state
Here is where I believe my own speculation begins.
Suppose there is some critical local state:
S<S_{\rm critical}.
Using my fluid analogy, I imagine this as extremely low "pressure" or extreme "depletion", although these terms should not be interpreted literally.
My question is:
Could a sufficiently extreme state of spacetime/vacuum become unstable in such a way that vacuum or field energy is converted into real excitations?
Instead of:
0\rightarrow\text{matter},
I am imagining something closer to:
E_{\rm vacuum}
\rightarrow
E_{\rm fields}
\rightarrow
\text{particles}.
This is important because I am not proposing creation of energy from absolute nothingness. I am asking whether energy associated with the vacuum/fields could change form.
I have not found a paper establishing the specific threshold mechanism I am proposing.
That does not demonstrate that such a threshold exists, but neither am I treating the absence of such a paper as proof that it cannot exist. For now this should simply be regarded as an unsupported postulate that would require a mathematical mechanism.
This section is my own speculation. My interpretation of the related quantum-field literature may also be incorrect because I am an amateur.
4. Matter creation can be associated with effective negative pressure
This was another interesting connection I found.
There are cosmological models in which gravitationally induced particle creation generates an effective negative creation pressure.
A recent example is:
P. W. R. Lima and J. A. S. Lima,
Cosmic expansion driven by gravitational particle production: toward a complete cosmological scenario,
European Physical Journal C 86, 411 (2026).
The authors explicitly construct a dark-energy-free cosmological model in which gravitationally induced adiabatic particle creation produces an effective negative pressure capable of driving both primordial inflation and late-time accelerated expansion.
This caught my attention because I had independently been visualizing my mechanism using the concept of extremely low or negative "pressure".
However, I understand that their creation pressure is a defined thermodynamic quantity and is not necessarily the same thing as my intuitive idea of low "vacuum pressure".
This connection is therefore only my amateur interpretation. I may be misunderstanding the physics or assigning too much significance to the similarity in terminology. I am not claiming that Lima & Lima's model demonstrates my mechanism.
5. Vacuum energy being converted into matter
Another question I had was whether the energy required for newly produced matter could come from the vacuum state itself.
Interestingly, models involving decaying vacuum energy and matter creation do exist.
For example:
L. Chander and C. P. Singh,
Matter Creation Cosmology With Decaying Vacuum Energy: Observational and Thermodynamical Analyses,
Fortschritte der Physik 74 (2026), e70105.
DOI: 10.1002/prop.70105
Their model treats decaying vacuum energy as an irreversible energy flow associated with gravitationally induced matter creation, and in their particular construction the generated component is dark matter. They compare the model with several cosmological datasets.
An earlier version is:
L. Chander and C. P. Singh,
Decaying vacuum energy, matter creation and cosmic acceleration (2025).
The authors consider interacting decaying vacuum energy and gravitationally induced matter creation and test the resulting cosmology against observational datasets.
So the general concept
E_{\rm vacuum}\rightarrow E_{\rm matter}
appears to have precedents in cosmological modeling.
This is again my amateur reading. Their mechanism is NOT identical to mine, and I may misunderstand important details of their model. I cite it only because it demonstrates that vacuum-energy-to-matter cosmologies are actually being considered.
6. Could a vacuum structure imitate some effects attributed to dark matter?
Now consider the opposite side of my hypothetical S(x,t).
Suppose some configuration has:
S>S_{\rm grav}
and contributes to gravitational attraction even though there is initially little ordinary matter there.
Ordinary matter would begin accumulating around this gravitational structure:
\text{vacuum/spacetime structure}
\rightarrow
\text{gravitational attraction}
\rightarrow
\text{matter accumulation}.
The newly accumulated matter would then contribute additional gravity:
\text{matter accumulation}
\rightarrow
\text{stronger gravitational well}
\rightarrow
\text{further accumulation}.
Thus a gravitational structure could, in principle, precede the visible matter concentration rather than always being produced by it.
I found a particularly interesting paper:
S. L. Cherkas and V. L. Kalashnikov,
Vacuum Polarization Instead of "Dark Matter" in a Galaxy,
Universe 8, 456 (2022).
DOI: 10.3390/universe8090456
The authors study vacuum polarization in a galaxy and obtain, for one type of polarization in their model, a "dark" galactic halo that affects the rotation velocity of a test particle. They also consider a second type of vacuum polarization with different behavior.
This is interesting to me because it demonstrates that at least some researchers have mathematically investigated the possibility that vacuum effects could produce gravitational behavior normally associated with a dark halo.
This is my amateur interpretation of their paper and I may be misunderstanding its implications. I am definitely NOT claiming that their model is equivalent to mine or that it proves dark matter is vacuum polarization.
7. Can gravitational fields themselves form gravitational structures?
I also wondered whether disturbances in spacetime could combine in such a way that their energy creates a gravitational structure.
This led me to John Wheeler's concept of a geon:
J. A. Wheeler,
Geons,
Physical Review 97, 511 (1955).
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRev.97.511
Wheeler considered configurations in which the mass associated with an electromagnetic disturbance produces sufficient gravitational attraction to hold the disturbance together for an extended period.
This is not the same as my proposed persistent vacuum "density node".
Nevertheless, the conceptual similarity that interested me is:
\text{field energy}
\rightarrow
\text{gravity}
\rightarrow
\text{localized field configuration}.
It suggests to me that it is at least meaningful to ask whether energy associated with fields or spacetime dynamics can itself become part of the gravitational structure rather than gravity always being treated as merely a response to ordinary matter.
Again, this is only my amateur interpretation. Wheeler's geons do NOT establish the mechanism I am proposing, and I may be stretching the analogy too far. I would particularly appreciate correction on this point.
8. Geometry producing matter directly
I also found a more exotic example:
V. A. Berezin and V. I. Dokuchaev,
Cosmological particle creation in Weyl geometry (2022).
The authors investigate cosmological solutions in Weyl geometry rather than standard Riemannian geometry. With direct interaction between the Weyl vector and matter fields, their model permits perfect-fluid particles to be created directly from the vacuum. They even note that non-interacting dust particles in this framework could be considered dark-matter candidates.
This is clearly not standard General Relativity, and I am not proposing Weyl geometry.
What interested me is simply that the broader chain
\text{geometry}
\rightarrow
\text{vacuum process}
\rightarrow
\text{matter}
has been mathematically explored.
My understanding of Weyl geometry is very limited, so this is especially likely to contain misunderstandings on my part. I cite this paper only as an example of geometry-induced vacuum particle creation being considered, not as evidence for my particular hypothesis.
9. Putting the pieces together
What I have NOT found is a model connecting all of these effects in the following way:
\boxed{
\text{vacuum state}
\leftrightarrow
\text{spacetime geometry}
\leftrightarrow
\text{matter/energy}
}
with two different feedback regimes.
Gravitational regime
S>S_{\rm grav}
leads schematically to:
\text{vacuum/spacetime structure}
\rightarrow
\text{gravity}
\rightarrow
\text{matter accumulation}
\rightarrow
\text{stronger gravitational structure}.
Some macroscopic consequences might then resemble phenomena currently modeled using dark matter.
Creation regime
At the opposite extreme:
S<S_{\rm creation}
would produce:
\text{extreme vacuum state}
\rightarrow
\text{instability}
\rightarrow
\text{field energy/particle creation}
\rightarrow
\text{increased local energy/matter}
\rightarrow
\text{change in geometry}.
This would act as a feedback mechanism opposing unlimited depletion.
I have found literature related to almost every individual arrow in these diagrams, but I have not found a source establishing this complete feedback loop or demonstrating that a single vacuum state variable could produce both regimes.
That combined mechanism is therefore the speculative part of my hypothesis.
And once again: I am an amateur. It is entirely possible that some of the connections I see between these papers disappear when the mathematics is properly understood.
10. Possible relation to dark matter and dark energy
The question motivating all of this is whether dark matter and dark energy necessarily have to represent two completely separate new ingredients.
Perhaps some phenomena attributed to them could instead represent different macroscopic regimes of the same underlying vacuum/spacetime dynamics.
Very schematically:
\text{ordinary matter}+\text{dynamic vacuum}
instead of treating the conceptual picture as simply:
\text{ordinary matter}
+\text{dark matter}
+\text{dark energy}.
This does not mean that I believe observations of dark matter or accelerated expansion are incorrect.
The observations are the thing that must be explained.
I am questioning the interpretation.
A viable version of this hypothesis would still have to reproduce gravitational lensing, galaxy rotation curves, galaxy-cluster dynamics, structure formation, CMB observations, BAO, supernova observations and many other successful results of the current cosmological model.
At present I have not demonstrated any of that.
Therefore I would describe this as a conceptual hypothesis, not a competing cosmological theory.
11. Possible long-term consequence
There is one speculative consequence I find particularly interesting.
If sufficiently depleted regions eventually produce new energy or matter, then cosmic dilution could contain its own negative feedback:
\text{expansion}
\rightarrow
\text{lower density}
\rightarrow
\text{critical vacuum state}
\rightarrow
\text{particle/energy creation}
\rightarrow
\text{increased local energy density}.
In that case extrapolating today's cosmological behavior indefinitely might not correctly predict the extremely distant future.
It could potentially alter assumptions leading to a final heat-death state.
However, I have not found evidence demonstrating this mechanism, and I am not claiming that existing heat-death calculations are therefore wrong. This is a consequence that would follow only if the proposed creation feedback actually existed and remained relevant at extremely late times.
This part is entirely speculative.
What I would like physicists here to tell me
I am posting this primarily to have the idea criticized.
I am particularly interested in four questions:
1. Is there a known theorem, conservation law or observation that immediately makes this type of feedback mechanism impossible?
2. Is there an existing field or quantity in quantum field theory, semiclassical gravity or another framework that already resembles the hypothetical S(x,t) I am describing?
3. Could a local vacuum/field configuration produce an additional gravitational potential that attracts matter without simply being equivalent to introducing another conventional matter component?
4. Could there theoretically be a critical vacuum/geometry state at which particle production becomes a self-regulating response to extreme cosmic dilution?
I would especially appreciate corrections to my interpretations of the papers above.
If I have misunderstood a source, please assume ignorance rather than an attempt to misrepresent it. I am approaching this as an amateur trying to determine whether an intuitive physical picture contains an idea worth developing mathematically, or whether known physics already provides a clear reason why it cannot work.
My central question is therefore not:
"Is this theory correct?"
It is:
"Is there enough physical plausibility here to justify trying to turn this feedback idea into a mathematical model, and if not, where exactly does it fail?"
