Related papers: Fundamental Constants
It is argued that quantum states of geometry, like those of particles, should be coherent on light cones of any size. An exact classical solution, the gravitational shock wave of a relativistic point particle, is used to estimate…
Only astronomical observations can effectively probe in space-time the variabil ity of the physical dimensionless constants such as the fine structure constant and proton-to-electron mass ratio, \mu, which are related to fund amental forces…
After a short history of the $\Lambda$-term it is explained why the (effective) cosmological constant is expected to obtain contributions from short-distance physics, corresponding to an energy at least as large as the Fermi scale. The…
We consider that the cosmological constant is associated with the vacuum energy density of a particle physics model. In the path integral formalism of euclidean quantum gravity and in the background of the Robertson Walker metric we…
This letter explores how a reinterpretation of the generalized uncertainty principle as an effective variation of Planck's constant provides a physical explanation for a number of fundamental quantities and couplings. In this context, a…
An accelerated universe should naturally have a vacuum energy density determined by its dynamical curvature. The cosmological constant is most likely a temporary description of a dynamical variable that has been drastically evolving from…
It is possible that there may be differences in the fundamental physical parameters from one side of the observed universe to the other. I show that the cosmological constant is likely to be the most sensitive of the physical parameters to…
The possibility that the vacuum energy density (VED), $\rho_{\rm vac}$, could be time dependent in the expanding Universe is intuitively more reasonable than just a rigid cosmological constant for the entire cosmic history. The dynamics of…
Based on a Planck scale underpinning for the universe, we deduce an expression for the gravitational constant which exhibits it as a distributional effect over all the particles of the universe. This solves a long standing puzzle, the so…
Multidimensionality of our Universe is one of the most intriguing assumption in modern physics. It follows naturally from theories unifying different fundamental interactions with gravity, e.g. M/string theory. The idea has received a great…
A central aspect of the cosmological constant problem is to understand why vacuum energy does not gravitate. In order to account for this observation, while allowing for nontrivial dynamics of the quantum vacuum, we motivate a novel…
General Relativity assumes that spacetime is fully described by the metric alone. An alternative is the so called Palatini formalism where the metric and the connections are taken as independent quantities. The metric-affine theory of…
We present a way of understanding the curvature of space-time, the basic philosophy being that the (linear) geometry of any space is determined by the (linear) functionals on the algebra(s) of any fields defined on the space. It is known…
This work explores the dynamical stability of cosmological models where dark matter and dark energy can non-minimally couple to spacetime (scalar) curvature. Two different scenarios are presented here. In the initial case, only dark matter…
The existence of a fundamental scale, a lower bound to any output of a position measurement, seems to be a model-independent feature of quantum gravity. In fact, different approaches to this theory lead to this result. The key ingredients…
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…
In this essay we offer a comprehensible overview of the gravitational aether scenario. This is a possible extension of Einstein's theory of relativity to the quantum regime via an effective approach. Quantization of gravity usually faces…
We review some of the history and properties of theories for the variation of the gravitation and fine structure 'constants'. We highlight some general features of the cosmological models that exist in these theories with reference to…
Coupling any interacting quantum mechanical system to gravity in one (time) dimension requires the cosmological constant to belong to the matter energy spectrum and thus to be quantised, even though the gravity sector is free of any quantum…
We note that in general there exist two basic aspects in any branch of physics, including cosmology - one dealing with the attributes of basic constituents and forces of nature, the other dealing with how structures arise from them and how…