Submitted:
22 October 2026
Posted:
23 October 2026
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Abstract
We propose that the quantum vacuum is a dynamic superfluid that is dragged by the rotating Sun, forming a large-scale vortex. The Sun and the vortex constitute an open system in which total angular momentum is conserved. A single partial slip parameter, fixed solely from the anomalous precession of Mercury, determines the coupling between solar rotation and vacuum entrainment. Over the age of the Solar System, the Sun has progressively entrained outer vacuum layers. The effective circulation of the vortex therefore grows linearly with distance, producing a constant orbital velocity. This naturally yields a distance-independent inward acceleration in the outer Solar System, consistent with the Pioneer anomaly observed between twenty and seventy astronomical units, and, at larger scales, flat galactic rotation curves without invoking dark matter. The model connects, with no additional free parameters, Solar System tests of gravity to galactic dynamics and provides a falsifiable, unified origin for three phenomena that have been treated as separate for more than a century.
Keywords:
dynamic quantum vacuum
; quantum vacuum vortex
; Mercury perihelion precession
; Pioneer anomaly
; galactic rotation curves
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