Vacuum Interaction Model for Cosmic Redshift

This paper presents a phenomenological model identifying the quantum vacuum as a physical mechanism for cosmic redshift. We model the quantum vacuum as an active medium with an effective electrical conductivity σ0, intrinsically related to the dynamic structure of virtual electron–positron (e+e−) pairs. We demonstrate that cosmic redshift and the Hubble constant H0 arise naturally from the continuous energy dissipation of propagating photons interacting with this vacuum impedance Z0. Specifically, every photon loses a constant fraction of energy per oscillation equivalent to hH0≈1.5×10−51J, representing a fundamental unit of cosmic energy dissipation. Within the proposed phenomenological framework, we identify the effective redshift parameter H0 with σ0(R)cZ0, assuming that the effective vacuum conductivity depends on the invariant spacetime curvature scalar R. This parametrization suggests a possible connection between the gravitational environment and inferred values of H0, which warrants further investigation in relation to the Hubble tension. The model offers a candidate non-expansionary interpretation of cosmological redshift, whose microscopic basis and observational consistency remain to be established.