Related papers: TASI Lectures on the Cosmological Constant
Some form of missing energy may account for the difference between the observed cosmic matter density and the critical density. Two leading candidates are a cosmological constant and quintessence (a time-varying, inhomogenous component with…
Everpresent $\Lambda$ is a cosmological scenario in which the observed cosmological "constant" $\Lambda$ fluctuates between positive and negative values with a vanishing mean, and with a magnitude comparable to the critical density at any…
Dynamical dark energy (DE) has been proposed to explain various aspects of the cosmological constant (CC) problem(s). For example, it is very difficult to accept that a strictly constant Lambda-term constitutes the ultimate explanation for…
There appears to be three, perhaps related, ways of approaching the nature of vacuum energy . The first is to say that it is just the lowest energy state of a given, usually quantum, system. The second is to equate vacuum energy with the…
Perhaps the deepest mystery of our accelerating Universe in expansion is the existence of a tiny and rigid cosmological constant, $\Lambda$. Its size is many orders of magnitude below the expected one in the standard model of particle…
High precision cosmological observations in last decade suggest that about 70% of our universe's energy density is in so called "Dark Energy" (DE). Observations show that DE has negative effective pressure and therefore unlike conventional…
The case grows ever stronger that the average density of matter, ordinary and dark, is less than the critical density required for a flat universe. However, most of determinations of the mass density have been dynamical, hence sensitive…
Recent observations of Type 1a supernovae indicating an accelerating universe have once more drawn attention to the possible existence, at the present epoch, of a small positive Lambda-term (cosmological constant). In this paper we review…
The cosmological constant problem is examined under the assumption that the extrinsic curvature of the space-time contributes to the vacuum. A compensation mechanism based on a variable cosmological term is proposed. Under a suitable…
Within the quantum mechanical treatment of the decay problem one finds that at late times $t$ the survival probability of an unstable state cannot have the form of an exponentially decreasing function of time $t$ but it has an inverse…
This contribution reviews recent work on a new approach to the cosmological constant problem, which starts from the macroscopic behavior of a conserved relativistic microscopic variable q. First, the statics of the vacuum energy density is…
We review the cosmological evidence for a low matter density universe and a cosmological constant or dynamical vacuum energy and address the cosmolog$ coincidence problem: why is the matter density about one-half the vacuum energy {\em…
We propose a time-varying cosmological constant with a fixed equation of state, which evolves mainly through its interaction with the background during most of the long history of the universe. However, such interaction does not exist in…
This is a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant. Focusing on recent developments, I present a pedagogical overview of cosmology in the presence of a cosmological constant, observational constraints on its…
In this review, the status of measurements of the matter density (Omega), the vaccuum energy density or cosmological constant (Lambda), the Hubble constant (H0), and ages of the oldest measured objects (t0) are summarized. Measurements of…
The cosmological constant problem is the principal obstacle in the attempt to interpret dark energy as the quantum vacuum energy. We suggest that the obstacle can be removed, i.e. that the cosmological constant problem can be resolved by…
The cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is a free parameter in Einstein's equations of gravity. We propose to fix its value with a boundary condition: test particles should be free when outside causal contact, e.g. at infinity. Under this…
The cosmological constant Lambda affects cosmological gravitational lensing. Effects due to Lambda can be studied in the framework of the Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime. Two novel contributions, which can not be accounted for by a proper…
Evidence for a positive cosmological constant $\Lambda$, derived from the Ly$\alpha$-forest in high-resolution spectra of quasars, leads to a closed, low-density, $\Lambda$-dominated universe. The analysis is based on the assumption of a…
The highly non-trivial structure of the $\theta$--vacuum encodes many of the fundamental properties of gauge theories. In particular, the response of the vacuum to the $\theta$--term perturbation is sensitive to the existence of…