Related papers: Proposal for the origin of the cosmological consta…
We generalize the well-known Bonnor-Melvin solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations to the case of a non-vanishing cosmological constant. The spacetime is again cylindrically symmetric and static but, unlike the original solution, it…
We argue that standard tools of holography can be used to describe fully non-perturbative microscopic models of cosmology in which a period of accelerated expansion may result from the positive potential energy of time-dependent scalar…
The two most popular candidates for dark energy, i.e. a cosmological constant and quintessence, are very difficult to distinguish observationally, mostly because the quintessence field does not have sizable fluctuations. We study a scalar…
We revisit the cosmic evolution of the energy density of a quantized free scalar field and assess under what conditions the particle production and classical field approximations reproduce its correct value. Because the unrenormalized…
A phenomenological model is proposed to explain the recent observed cosmological variation of the fine structure constant as an effect of the quantum vacuum, assuming a flat universe with cosmological constant $\Lambda$ in the cases…
Quantum field theory predicts that vacuum energy (or what is the same, cosmological constant) should be 50-100 orders of magnitude larger than the existing astronomical limit. A very brief review of possible solutions of this problem is…
The cosmological constant term, $\Lambda$, in Einstein's equations has been for three decades a building block of the concordance or standard $\Lambda$CDM model of cosmology. Although the latter is not free of fundamental problems, it…
We start with a brief account of the latest analysis of the Oklo phenomenon providing the still most stringent constraint on time-variability of the fine- structure constant $\alpha$. Comparing this with the recent result from the…
The canonical cosmological model to explain the recent acceleration of the universe relies on a cosmological constant, and most dynamical dark energy and modified gravity model alternatives are based on scalar fields. Still, further…
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…
In cosmology based on general relativity, the universe is modeled as a fluid. The transition from the Einstein field equation to its large-scale (cosmological) version is thus analogous to the transition, for a system consisting of a large…
In this colloquium-level account, I describe the cosmological constant problem: why is the energy of empty space at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller than several known contributions to it from the Standard Model of particle physics? I…
We present a cosmological model arising from a gravitational theory with an infinite tower of higher-order curvature invariants that can reproduce the entire evolution of the Universe: from inflation to late-time acceleration, without…
A new model of oscillators was suggested, in which an oscillating particle in the minimum energy state has a nonzero velocity. A system consisting of a point material particle and a scalar field described by the nonlinear Klein-Gordon…
A cosmology is considered driven by a stress-energy tensor consisting of a perfect fluid, an inhomogeneous pressure term (which we call a ``tachyonic dust'' for reasons which will become apparent) and a cosmological constant. The…
Cosmological constant can always be considered as the on-shell value of a top form in gravitational theories. The top form is field strength of a gauge field, and the theory enjoys a gauge symmetry. We show that cosmological constant is the…
We explore local consequences of a non-zero cosmological constant on astrophysical structures. We find that the effects are not only sensitive to the density of the configurations but also to the geometry. For non-homogeneous…
The accelerating expansion of the Universe points to a small positive value for the cosmological constant or vacuum energy density. We discuss recent ideas that the cosmological constant plus LHC results might hint at critical phenomena…
We have shown that the varying physical constant model is consistent with the recently published variational approach wherein Einstein equations are modified to include the variation of the speed of light c, gravitational constant G and…
We present a space-velocity theory of gravitation in a 4-dimensional curved space. The solutions of the field equations yield 3 possibilities for the universe expansion but only the accelerating one is possible. Although the theory has no…