English

Inflation driven by a bare cosmological constant and its graceful exit

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2026-03-25 v1

Abstract

Vacuum energy, a prediction of quantum field theory, manifests itself as a cosmological constant in general relativity. In this Letter, we propose a novel inflationary scenario driven by a bare cosmological constant Λ\Lambda, which terminates naturally through a self-tuning mechanism. Within Fab-Four gravity, self-tuning destabilizes the de Sitter state and drives the system toward a stiff-fluid attractor, thereby yielding a graceful exit. We construct two explicit models in which the slow-roll parameter evolves exponentially or as a power law. We show that the latter model, derived from center-manifold dynamics, significantly relaxes the required tuning of initial conditions. Our results establish, for the first time, that bare-vacuum-energy inflation with natural termination constitutes a viable dynamical possibility.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.23263,
  title  = {Inflation driven by a bare cosmological constant and its graceful exit},
  author = {Chengsheng Mu and Shuxun Tian and Shuo Cao and Zong-Hong Zhu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.23263},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:35:33.036Z