This work explores the possibility that the gravitational phenomena commonly attributed to dark matter may arise from scale-invariant infrared fluctuations of the quantum vacuum. Under the hypothesis that the vacuum energy spectrum follows a nearly scale-invariant behavior at large wavelengths, coarse-grained infrared modes behave as an effective pressureless, collisionless component on galactic and cluster scales. This framework naturally reproduces several empirical regularities, including quasi-universal halo surface densities, density profiles close to an inverse-square radial dependence, flat rotation curves, the radial acceleration relation, and the baryonic Tully–Fisher relation, without introducing new particles. A semiclassical rationale based on stress–energy correlations of long-wavelength vacuum modes is outlined. In this picture, quadratic fluctuations of the vacuum can generate an effective large-scale gravitational component after coarse-graining. A speculative extension suggests that the same infrared sector may also contain an isotropic contribution that becomes dominant on horizon scales and could behave as a cosmological-constant-like term. The proposal is presented as an effective phenomenological framework rather than a complete microphysical theory.
Daniel Bensaid (Thu,) studied this question.