Sound is only available to travel through a transmission medium. My question is due to space not truly being empty, more specifically there are virtual particles in a vacuum, can sound be propagated through space? Further could the speed of sound in this medium be an indicator of the density of virtual particles and therefore the vacuum energy?
Answer
@AccidentalFourierTransform's link, which he references above, furnishes a mathematical description of how virtual particles enter the picture of particle-particle interactions. @shai horowitz, the important takeaway for you here is that virtual particles are in principle undetectable in any experiment which means they cannot transmit sound impulses through space.
To transmit sonic waves through space requires that the space be populated with real particles at a density sufficient to support acoustic waves. These acoustic waves have actually been detected- see Caleb Scharf's recent book, Gravity's Engines, for an accessible and engaging description of them.
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