Related papers: Self-tuning vacuum variable and cosmological const…
For almost a century, the cosmological constant has been a mysterious object, in relation to both its origin and its very small value. By using a Bose-Einstein condensate analogue model for gravitational dynamics, we address here the…
In this thesis the cosmological constant is investigated from two points of view. First, we study the influence of a time-dependent cosmological constant on the late-time expansion of the universe. Thereby, we consider several combinations…
A set of diverse but mutually consistent results obtained in different settings has spawned a new view of loop quantum gravity and its physical implications, based on the interplay of operator calculations and effective theory: Quantum…
The energy density of the vacuum, Lambda, is at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller than several known contributions to it. Approaches to this problem are tightly constrained by data ranging from elementary observations to precision…
The cosmological constant problem is principally concerned with trying to understand how the zero-point energy of quantum fields contributes to gravity. Here we take the approach that by addressing a fundamental unresolved issue in quantum…
The linear cosmological perturbation theory of an almost homogeneous and isotropic perfect fluid universe is reconsidered and formally simplified by introducing new covariant and gauge-invariant variables with physical interpretations on…
A mechanism for suppressing the cosmological constant is developed, based on an analogy with a superconducting phaseshift in which free fermions coupled perturbatively to a weak gravitational field are in an unstable false vacuum state. The…
We explore two hypotheses. First, the possibility that the quantum vacuum energy density of the Casimir effect contributes to a (local) gravitational vacuum energy density. Second, the possibility that a change in the gravitational coupling…
We exhibit a mechanism which dynamically adjusts cosmological constant toward $0^+$. The adjustment is quantum-mechanical, discharging cosmological constant in random discrete steps. It renders de Sitter space unstable, and triggers its…
Within conventional big bang cosmology, it has proven to be very difficult to understand why today's cosmological constant is so small. In this paper, we show that a cyclic model of the universe can naturally incorporate a dynamical…
In this note we elaborate on various five dimensional contributions to the effective 4D cosmological constant in brane systems. In solutions with vanishing 5D cosmological constant we describe a non-local mechanism of cancellation of vacuum…
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…
Irreversibility implies a preferred flow of time, yet special relativity denies the existence of a preferred clock. This tension has long obstructed the formulation of a relativistic master equation: standard Markovian approximations either…
A mechanism for suppressing the cosmological constant is described, using a superconducting analogy in which fermions coupled to gravitons are in an unstable false vauum. The coupling of the fermions to gravitons and a screened attractive…
We apply a new self-tuning mechanism to the well-known Kachru-Kallosh-Linde-Trivedi (KKLT) model to address the cosmological constant problem. In this mechanism the cosmological constant $\lambda$ contains a supersymmetry breaking term…
It is suggested that the exact value of the cosmological constant could be derived from first principles, based on entanglement of the Standard Model field vacuum with emergent holographic quantum geometry. For the observed value of the…
Based on some observations, the apparent energy, associated with gravity, of vacuums is defined, with that of normal vacuums to be zero and that of the vacuums losing some energy to be negative. An important application of the energy is its…
It has been proposed that the geometry of an extra dimension could automatically adjust itself to compensate for an arbitrary energy density on the 3-D brane which we are presumed to inhabit, such that a static solution to Einstein's…
Zero point fluctuations of quantum fields should generate a large cosmological constant energy density in any spacetime. How then can we have anything other than de Sitter space without fine tuning? Well tempering -- dynamical cancellation…
The evolution of the wave function in quantum mechanics is deterministic like that of classical waves. Only when we bring in observers the fundamentally different quantum reality emerges. Similarly the introduction of observers changes the…