The set of these states allowed by consistent theories is measure zero within a larger set that Cumrun Vafa called the “swampland.” This state is Poincaré-invariant, cyclic, and unique as a consequence of the Wightman axioms. Sidney Coleman proposed a mechanism in Kaluza–Klein theories where the decay of a metastable one of these states is caused by bubble nucleation. In the Fock space construction, repeatedly applying the creation operator to this state generates an n-particle Fock state. The Casimir effect arises from a non-zero value of this state’s expectation value. The self-energy of the photon causes this state’s namesake “polarization.” Virtual particles spontaneously emerge and annihilate from this state. For 10 points, name this lowest quantum state consisting of empty space. ■END■
| California (South) | Main Site | Y | 4 | 75% | 0% | 50% | 96.67 |
| Canada | Main Site | Y | 11 | 91% | 0% | 27% | 95.80 |
| Great Lakes | Main Site | Y | 5 | 100% | 0% | 0% | 86.40 |
| Northeast | Main Site | Y | 5 | 60% | 0% | 40% | 113.33 |
| UK | Main Site | Y | 6 | 100% | 0% | 17% | 87.17 |
| Upper Mid-Atlantic | Main Site | Y | 8 | 100% | 0% | 25% | 99.88 |
| Player | Team | Opponent | Buzz Position | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delia Cropper | Oxford A | LSE | 26 | 10 |
| Max Neal | Harvard B | Dartmouth B | 35 | -5 |
| Platon Gorokhov | Toronto E | Toronto Metropolitan | 57 | 10 |
| Matthew Wang | UBC A | Waterloo B | 58 | -5 |
| David Bass | Johns Hopkins A | Swarthmore | 60 | 10 |
| Caleb Ott | Waterloo A | Brock | 75 | 10 |
| Colin Veevers | Ottawa | Toronto C | 78 | 10 |
| Mattias Ehatamm | Maryland A | John Jay | 78 | 10 |
| Kaiwen Xiao | UCLA A | UCLA B | 80 | 10 |
| Wyatt Johnson | CWRU B | CWRU A | 80 | 10 |
| Yashwanth Bajji | Michigan A | Pittsburgh | 81 | 10 |
| Imran Abdul Rahman | UCL | City St. George's | 82 | 10 |
| Dennis Yang | Michigan B | Michigan C | 83 | 10 |
| Oscar O'Flanagan | Imperial A | Oxford B | 84 | 10 |
| Calvin Bostleman | Ohio State A | Michigan State | 88 | 10 |
| Winston Zuo | UC Santa Barbara | UC Irvine | 89 | 10 |
| Jason Zhang | Toronto B | Western B | 89 | 10 |
| Hamish Campbell | Durham | Cambridge B | 89 | 10 |
| Brandon Weiss | Columbia C | NYU C | 89 | 10 |
| Jason Qin | Columbia A | Johns Hopkins B | 89 | -5 |
| Athan Juritsch | Toronto G | Queen's | 90 | 10 |
| Ethen Sun | Toronto D | McGill A | 95 | 10 |
| Luke Robitaille | MIT | Harvard A | 98 | 10 |
| Ryan Rosenberg | NYU A | Maryland C | 99 | 10 |
| Aditya Patnaik | Ohio State B | Ohio State C | 100 | 10 |
| Ethan Ririe | UCSD C | Arizona State | 108 | -5 |
| Adil Haider | McMaster A | Western A | 108 | -5 |
| Adil Soubki | Cambridge C | Edinburgh B | 108 | -5 |
| Fish Tsai | UCSD A | UCSD B | 111 | -5 |
| Jay Misuk | Western C | Guelph | 111 | 10 |
| Aiden Dartley | Rutgers A | Maryland B | 111 | 10 |
| Yusuf Baig | McMaster B | UBC B | 115 | -5 |
| Ezra Siegartel | Vassar | Catholic | 116 | -5 |
| Nathaniel Martin | Brandeis B | Southern Connecticut State | 117 | -5 |
| Jacob Hardin-Bernhardt | NYU B | Rutgers B | 120 | 10 |
| Skand Parvatikar | Arizona State | UCSD C | 121 | 0 |
| Jaiden Li | UCSD B | UCSD A | 121 | 10 |
| Sicheng Jiang | Toronto F | McGill B | 121 | 10 |
| David Vellojin | Western A | McMaster A | 121 | 10 |
| Sriram Susarla | UBC B | McMaster B | 121 | 0 |
| Dawson Teu | Waterloo B | UBC A | 121 | 10 |
| Kayla Drajpuch | Brandeis A | Bowdoin A | 121 | 10 |
| Matthew Forster | Dartmouth A | Bowdoin B | 121 | 10 |
| Jackson Price | Dartmouth B | Harvard B | 121 | 0 |
| Ted Harrison | Edinburgh B | Cambridge C | 121 | 10 |
| Jake Wingfield | Bristol | Imperial C | 121 | 10 |
| Aiden Bang | Johns Hopkins B | Columbia A | 121 | 10 |
| Dillon George | Catholic | Vassar | 121 | 10 |