English

Cosmological constant: relaxation vs multiverse

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2019-09-09 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We consider a scalar field with a bottom-less potential, such as g3ϕg^3 \phi, finding that cosmologies unavoidably end up with a crunch, late enough to be compatible with observations if g1.2H02/3MPl1/3g \lesssim 1.2 H_0^{2/3} M_{\rm Pl}^{1/3}. If rebounces avoid singularities, the multiverse acquires new features; in particular probabilities avoid some of the usual ambiguities. If rebounces change the vacuum energy by a small enough amount, this dynamics selects a small vacuum energy and becomes the most likely source of universes with anthropically small cosmological constant. Its probability distribution could avoid the gap by 2 orders of magnitude that seems left by standard anthropic selection.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1904.07876,
  title  = {Cosmological constant: relaxation vs multiverse},
  author = {Alessandro Strumia and Daniele Teresi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.07876},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

15 pages, 3 figures; published version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T08:41:49.395Z