English

Vacuum Energy: Cosmological Constant or Quintessence?

Astrophysics 2009-10-31 v2

Abstract

For a flat universe presently dominated by smooth energy, either cosmological constant (LCDM) or quintessence (QCDM), we calculate the asymptotic collapsed mass fraction as function of the present ratio of smooth energy to matter energy R0\mathcal R_0. Identifying the normalized collapsed fraction as a conditional probability for habitable galaxies, we observe that the observed present ratio R02\mathcal R_0 \sim 2 is likely in LCDM, but more likely in QCDM. Inverse application of Bayes' Theorem makes the Anthropic Principle a predictive scientific principle: the data implies that the prior probability for R0\mathcal R_0 must be essentially flat over the anthropically allowed range. Interpreting this prior as a distribution over {\em theories} lets us predict that any future theory of initial conditions must be indifferent to R0\mathcal R_0. This application of the Anthropic Principle does not demand the existence of other universes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0004328,
  title  = {Vacuum Energy: Cosmological Constant or Quintessence?},
  author = {Sidney Bludman and Matts Roos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0004328},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

17 pages AAS LATEX, including 2 tables, 3 figures (Postscript)