quantum mechanics - Gluons and dark energy

According to my understanding, the dark energy is something that permeates space. The space in between the quantum particles (say like space between a nucleus and electrons, going even more deeper, I find the space between the quarks as well) and also the space that is pushing the galaxies apart.

The amount of dark energy is crucial for a universe to get created in first place. Now I see that when one breaks open a proton one can find a odd number (3, 5, 7...) of quarks contained within a proton. When one tries to create a vacuum, after taking out all of the air out we still remain with a fluctuation field called the Gluons fluctuating field. But a really true vacuum can be created by a quark and an anti-quark interaction. The place where the quark and anti-quark interact form a flux tube. And this flux tubes contains nothing but a real, true vacuum.

So my question is that I think these flux tubes are dark energy? And do the gluons fluctuating field exists everywhere like the Higgs field?

Answer

There is a number of misconceptions in the question. I did not downvote the question, but I will just try to address some of the mistakes.

1. 
   

   In Quantum Field Theroy (QFT) all fields permeat all space. I am not sure what you mean by "gluon fluctuating field" - there is simply a quantum field for each particle type: not only for gluons, but also for electrons, each quark type, muons, tauons, neutrions, photons, Higgs boson, vector bosons of weak interaction. And all these quantum fields permeat all the space, so I can say yes - the gluon field exists everywhere, like the Higgs field and also like any other quantum field (gluon field is not special). And all these fields have their lowest energy (vacuum) state: sometimes this lowest energy state is called "vacuum fluctuations" because the fields are never exactly zero, even if there are no particles nearby. Thus all quantum fields fluctuate - not only gluon field. Particles are something like small localized disturbances in these fields (something like little "waves" that are moving in these fields).

   
   



2. 
   

   If you try to create vacuum, it is not sufficient to take away only the air. You also need to remove the radiation, because radiation is made from photons and photons are also particles. And radiation can be infrared, generated by the heat of distant sources or from the walls of the vessel where you create the vacuum. Even very cold objects (almost absolute zero Kelvin temperature) still radiate energy in the form of electromagnetic waves. And besides the radiation you need to remove neutrinos. These little guys fly everywhere in space, through our bodies, in vast amounts, and it is basically impossible to shield them out. And even if you remove all photons and all neutrinos, there are still the vacuum fluctuations in all fields (not just gluon field). This lowest energy state of quantum fields cannot be removed. It is a direct consequance of the fact that the fields are quantum: they cannot have an exact value and at the same time also an exact "rate of change" of this value, due to Heisenberg uncertainty. I am simplifying here (in fact the uncertainty is about the field and its canonical momentum, but this is a technical detail). So even without particles, at each point of space there are many quantum fields in their lowest energy state which is non-zero.

   
   


3. 
   

   I am not sure what you mean by "true vacuum". See the explanation above and hopefuly this will clarify it for you. Not even quark-antiquark interaction can change the fact that all fields fluctuate. No interaction can remove the quantum behavior of fields. Quark and antiquark will maybe just form a meson particle for a very short time. The meson quickly decays into leptons or photons.

   
   


4. 
   

   Inside a proton there are 3 valence quarks (not 5 and not 7). Besides these valence quarks there is an uncertain amount of other quark-antiquark pairs inside each proton, so in fact it is not possible to say how many quarks are in a proton (or neutron, which is an analogous case).

   
   


5. 
   
   

   I would conclude that flux tubes are not dark energy. Dark energy distribution is uniform in space, but quark interactions do not definitely happen uniformly in all the space. Quarks interact via strong interaction which is a short range force (can only reach to distances of a few femtometers). Dark energy is affecting galaxy clusters billions of light years away.