English

Gluonic vacuum, q-theory, and the cosmological constant

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2009-11-13 v6 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

In previous work, q-theory was introduced to describe the gravitating macroscopic behavior of a conserved microscopic variable q. In this article, the gluon condensate of quantum chromodynamics is considered in terms of q-theory. The remnant vacuum energy density (i.e., cosmological constant) of an expanding universe is estimated as K_{QCD}^3 / E_{Planck}^2, with string tension K_{QCD} \approx (10^2 MeV)^2 and gravitational scale E_{Planck} \approx 10^{19} GeV. The only input for this estimate is general relativity, quantum chromodynamics, and the Hubble expansion of the present Universe.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0811.4347,
  title  = {Gluonic vacuum, q-theory, and the cosmological constant},
  author = {F. R. Klinkhamer and G. E. Volovik},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0811.4347},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

20 pages; v6: published version

R2 v1 2026-06-21T11:45:37.303Z