Related papers: The Cosmological Constant is Probably Zero, and a …
Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological…
The cosmological constant problem arises at the intersection between general relativity and quantum field theory, and is regarded as a fundamental problem in modern physics. In this paper we describe the historical and conceptual origin of…
We suggest a new perspective on the Cosmological Constant Problem by scrutinizing its standard formulation. In classical and quantum mechanics without gravity, there is no definition of the zero point of energy. Furthermore, the Casimir…
Witten has presented an argument for the vanishing of the cosmological constant in 2+1 dimensions. This argument is crucially tied to the specific properties of (2+1)-dimensional gravity. We argue that this reasoning can be deconstructed to…
In this work we suggest, without detailed mathematical analysis, a hypothesis on the physical meaning of cosmological constant. It is primarily based on a conceptual analogy with energy characteristics of the crystal lattice structure, i.e.…
We discuss how we remove a huge discrepancy between the theory of a cosmological constant, due to the zero-point energies of matter fields, and the observation. The technique of dimensional regularization plays a decisive role. We…
The Planck scale is usually believed to be an unpassable wall. Putting a cutoff there and thinking of it as a quantized spacetime entity shows that. However, this is exactly the cause of many problems in quantum gravity. The cosmological…
Recently it has been argued that a correct reading of the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum could lead to a solution to the cosmological constant problem. In this work we critically examine such a proposal, finding it questionable due to…
The value of the cosmological constant is one of the major puzzles of modern cosmology: it is tiny but nonzero. Sorkin predicted, from the Causet approach to quantum gravity, that the cosmological constant has quantum fluctuations. The…
A new idea of the cosmological constant is proposed in this paper. Due to the horizon is limited, the quantum fluctuation of the inflaton field is not zero, a nonzero vacuum energy is remained as a residual inflationary energy of an unusual…
We are at a specific period of modern cosmology, during which the large increase of the amount of data leads to the idea that the determination of cosmological parameters has been achieved with a rather good precision. There is a large…
Recent astrophysical observations seem to indicate that the cosmological constant is small but nonzero and positive. The old cosmological constant problem asks why it is so small; we must now ask, in addition, why it is nonzero (and is in…
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…
It is shown that the probability distribution $P(\lambda)$ for the effective cosmological constant is sharply peaked at $\lambda=0$ in stochastic (or "fifth-time") stabilized quantum gravity. The effect is similar to the Baum-Hawking…
There is some evidence that the Universe is presently undergoing accelerating expansion. This has restored some credit to the scenarios with a non-vanishing cosmological constant. From the point of view of a theory of fundamental…
Normalizing the Einstein-Hilbert action by the volume functional makes the theory invariant under constant shifts in the Lagrangian. The associated field equations then resemble unimodular gravity whose otherwise arbitrary cosmological…
We propose an approach to explaining why naive large quantum fluctuations are not the right estimate for the cosmological constant. We argue that the universe is in a superposition of many vacua, in such a way that the resulting…
In contrast to the phenomenon of nullification of the cosmological constant in the equilibrium vacuum, which is the general property of any quantum vacuum, there are many options in modifying the Einstein equation to allow the cosmological…
The quantum gravitational contribution to the renormalization group behavior of the electric charge in Einstein-Maxwell theory with a cosmological constant is considered. Quantum gravity is shown to lead to a contribution to the running…
We trace the origin of the cosmological constant problem to the assumption that Newton's constant $G$ sets the scale for cosmology. And then we show that once this assumption is relaxed, the very same cosmic acceleration which has served to…