English

A Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmological model with running Lambda

Astrophysics 2007-05-23 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

The idea of a variable dark energy has been entertained many times in the literature and from many different points of view. Quintessence is just a popular way to implement this idea in recent times, but so far with little success. Another possibility is to think of the cosmological term, Lambda, as a ``running quantity'' much in the same way as the electromagnetic coupling constant. However, the fact that Lambda is a dimension-four parameter implies that it may obey a peculiar renormalization group equation, which at low energies could be dominated by ``soft decoupling'' contributions of the form Lambda ~ H^2 M_P^2 stemming from physics near the Planck scale. This value lies in the ballpark of the measurements from CMB and high-z supernovae. A ``renormalized'' FLRW cosmology of this kind may reveal itself as a sound, and testable, proposal for a variable Lambda model within quantum field theory in curved space time.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0401015,
  title  = {A Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmological model with running Lambda},
  author = {Ilya L. Shapiro and Joan Sola},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0401015},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Invited talk at the International Workshop on Astroparticle and High-Energy Physics (AHEP-2003). Corrected misprint