Related papers: The Universe in a Soap Film
The astronomically observed value of the cosmological constant is small but non-zero. This raises two questions together known as the cosmological constant problem a) why is lambda so nearly zero? b) why is lambda not EXACTLY zero? Sorkin…
We advance the viewpoint that only relevant modes of the vacuum fluctuations, namely, with wavelengths conditioned by the size, homogeneity, geometry and topology of the Universe, do contribute into the cosmological constant. A formula is…
A diverse set of observations now compellingly suggest that Universe possesses a nonzero cosmological constant. In the context of quantum-field theory a cosmological constant corresponds to the energy density of the vacuum, and the wanted…
The cosmological constant problem is turned around to argue for a new foundational physics postulate underlying a consistent quantum theory of gravity and matter, such as string theory. This postulate is a quantum equivalence principle…
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…
We point out that the standard formulation of the cosmological constant problem itself is problematic since it is trying to apply the very large scale homogeneous cosmological model to very small (Planck) scale phenomenon. At small scales,…
When the vacuum fluctuation pressure is calculated directly from fundamental principles of quantum field theory, in the same manner as vacuum fluctuation energy density is commonly calculated, one finds it is not equal to the negative of…
The fluctuations of the vacuum energy are treated as a non-equilibrium process and a stochastic model for the cosmological constant is presented, which yields a natural explanation for the smallness or zero value of the constant in the…
Based on the assertion that the cosmological constant problem is essentially a quantum gravity problem, the framework which addresses the cosmological constant problem should also bear a picture for the ``quantum space-time''. In this talk…
Naive calculations in quantum field theory suggest that vacuum fluctuations should induce an enormous cosmological constant. What if these estimates are right? I argue that even a huge cosmological constant might be hidden in Planck scale…
At the level of the Planck scale, the spacetime metric has to be considered a quantum variable. Conformal quantum fluctuations of the metric tensor are studied here. They lead to an extra term in the Einstein equations which can be…
The standard formulation of the cosmological constant problem is based on one critical assumption---the spacetime is homogeneous and isotropic, which is true only on cosmological scales. However, this problem is caused by extremely small…
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…
We discuss from the condensed-matter point of view the recent idea that the Poisson fluctuations of cosmological constant about zero could be a source of the observed dark energy. We argue that the thermodynamic fluctuations of Lambda are…
According to general relativity, the present analysis shows on geometrical grounds that the cosmological constant problem is an artifact due to the unfounded link of this fundamental constant to vacuum energy density of quantum…
Perhaps standard effective field theory arguments are right, and vacuum fluctuations really do generate a huge cosmological constant. I show that if one does not assume homogeneity and an arrow of time at the Planck scale, a very large…
In this work we suggest a simple model of the cosmological constant as the coefficient of the quantum tunneling of vacuum fluctuations (with wave length larger than Planck length) at tiny, boundary spherical shell of the universe (with…
According to general relativity, the present analysis shows on geometrical grounds that the cosmological constant problem is an artifact due to the unfounded link of this fundamental constant to vacuum energy density of quantum…
We discuss predictions for cosmology which result from the scaling solution of functional flow equations for a quantum field theory of gravity. A scaling solution is necessary to render quantum gravity renormalizable. Our scaling solution…
In this paper I continue the investigation in \cite{1,1b} concerning my proposal on the nature of the cosmological constant. In particular, I study both mathematically and physically the quantum Planckian context and I provide, in order to…