The vacuum as a form of turbulent fluid: Motivations, experiments, implications

Basic foundational aspects of both quantum theory and relativity might induce one to represent the physical vacuum as an underlying highly turbulent fluid. By explicit numerical simulations, we show that a form of statistically isotropic and homogeneous vacuum turbulence is entirely consistent with the present ether-drift experiments. In particular, after subtracting known forms of disturbances, the observed stochastic signal requires velocity fluctuations whose absolute scale is well described by the average Earth’s motion with respect to the Cosmic Microwave Background. We emphasize that the existence of a genuine stochastic ether-drift could be crucial for the emergence of forms of self-organization in matter and thus for the whole approach to complexity. •A new reading of the stochastic signal in present ether-drift experiments.•This paper can have substantial implications for the interpretation of relativity.•This paper can also have implications for the whole approach to complexity.