Related papers: Zero-point quantum fluctuations and dark energy
In order to understand the nature of the accelerating expansion of the late-time universe, it is important to experimentally determine whether dark energy is a cosmological constant or dynamical in nature. If dark energy already exists…
The positive energy theorem precludes the possibility of Minkowski flat space decaying by any mechanism. In certain circumstances, however, large quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field could arise---not only at the Planck scale,…
General Relativity receives quantum corrections relevant at macroscopic distance scales and near event horizons. These arise from the conformal scalar degrees of freedom in the extended effective field theory of gravity generated by the…
Black holes are an apparently unavoidable prediction of classical General Relativity, at least if matter obeys the strong energy condition rho + 3p > 0. However quantum vacuum fluctuations generally violate this condition, as does the eq.…
The idea that the universe has zero total energy when one includes the contribution from the gravitational field is reconsidered. A Hamiltonian is proposed as an energy for the exact equations of FRW cosmology: it is then shown that this…
Space-time quantum contributions to the classical Einstein equations of General Relativity are determined. The theoretical background is provided by the non-perturbative theory of manifestly-covariant quantum gravity and the…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
It is assumed that, for weak spacetime curvature, the main gravitational effect of the quantum vacuum stress-energy corresponds to adding two terms to the Einstein-Hilbert action, proportional to the square of the curvature scalar and to…
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…
We derive expressions for the total Hamiltonian energy of gravitating systems in higher dimensional theories in terms of the Riemann tensor, allowing a cosmological constant $\Lambda \in \mathbb{R}$. Our analysis covers asymptotically…
We discuss some effects induced by quantum field fluctuations on mass, inertia and gravitation. Recalling the problem raised by vacuum field fluctuations with respect to inertia and gravitation, we show that vacuum energy differences, such…
We present a solution to the cosmological constant, the zero-point energy, and the quantum gravity problems within a single comprehensive framework. We show that in quantum theories of gravity in which the zero-point energy density of the…
A constant (spacetime-independent) $q$-field may play a crucial role for the cancellation of Planck-scale contributions to the gravitating vacuum energy density. We now show that a small spacetime-dependent perturbation of the equilibrium…
A quantum expansion parameter, analogous to the Hubble parameter in cosmology, is defined for a free particle quantum wavefunction. By considering the universe as an initial single Gaussian quantum wavepacket whose mass is that of…
We present a study of energy density and pressure of a free real scalar quantum field after its decoupling from a thermal bath in the spatially flat Friedman-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker space-time by solving the Klein-Gordon equation both…
The field equations in $f(R)$ gravity derived from the Palatini variational principle and formulated in the Einstein conformal frame yield a cosmological term which varies with time. Moreover, they break the conservation of the…
We generalize tensor-scalar theories of gravitation by the introduction of an abnormally weighting type of energy. This theory of tensor-scalar anomalous gravity is based on a relaxation of the weak equivalence principle that is now…
Einstein gravity coupled to a massive skew symmetric field F_{\mu\nu\lambda} leads to an acceleration law that modifies the Newtonian law of attraction between particles. We use a framework of non-perturbative renormalization group…
First, we describe the construction of a new type of gravity-matter models based on the formalism of non-Riemannian space-time volume forms - alternative generally covariant integration measure densities (volume elements) defined in terms…
We investigate the cosmological behavior in a universe governed by time asymmetric extensions of general relativity, which is a novel modified gravity based on the addition of new, time-asymmetric, terms on the Hamiltonian framework, in a…