We show that in the semiclassical theory of gravity, flat spacetime with quantum fields in the Minkowski vacuum is unstable to a certain type of infinitesimal perturbation. Moreover, these perturbations evolve into a catastrophic collapse in an arbitrarily short time scale. However, our universe is safe against these perturbations until some time far in the future.
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Wai-Mo Suen (1989) studied this question.
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