Time-Dependent Vacuum Energy Induced by D-Particle Recoil

We consider cosmology in the framework of a `material reference system' of D particles, including the effects of quantum recoil induced by closed-string probe particles. We find a time-dependent contribution to the cosmological vacuum energy, which relaxes to zero as $\sim 1/ t^2$ for large times $t$. If this energy density is dominant, the Universe expands with a scale factor $R(t) \sim t^2$. We show that this possibility is compatible with recent observational constraints from high-redshift supernovae, and may also respect other phenomenological bounds on time variation in the vacuum energy imposed by early cosmology.