Related papers: Cosmological Constant from Decoherence
Several attempts to solve the cosmological constant problem, which concerns the value of the cosmological constant being extremely smaller than the Standard Model mass scales, have introduced a scalar field with a very flat potential that…
Some issues of the cosmological constant or dark energy are briefly reviewed. There are an increasing number of observations that constrain the equation of state of dark energy more stringently and favor the time-independent cosmological…
We show that the presence of a temporal electromagnetic field on cosmological scales generates an effective cosmological constant which can account for the accelerated expansion of the universe. Primordial electromagnetic quantum…
Cosmology struggles with the theoretical problems generated by the observed value and recent emergence of a cosmological constant, in the standard model of cosmology, i.e. the concordance model. We propose to provide a more natural…
We study the role of the cosmological constant (CC) as a component of dark energy (DE). It is argued that the cosmological term is in general unavoidable and it should not be ignored even when dynamical DE sources are considered. From the…
We investigate the possibility of replacing the cosmological constant with gradual condensation of a scalar field produced during the decay of a superheavy dark matter. The advantage of this class of models to the ordinary quintessence is…
Nearly seventy per cent of the energy density in the universe is unclustered and exerts negative pressure. This conclusion -- now supported by numerous observations -- poses the greatest challenge for theoretical physics today. I discuss…
The cosmological constant problem is the principal obstacle in the attempt to interpret dark energy as the quantum vacuum energy. We suggest that the obstacle can be removed, i.e. that the cosmological constant problem can be resolved by…
I briefly review the cosmological constant problem and the issue of dark energy (or quintessence). Within the framework of quantum field theory, the vacuum expectation value of the energy momentum tensor formally diverges as $k^4$. A cutoff…
We derive a model of dark energy which evolves with time via the scale factor. The equation of state $\omega=(1-2\alpha)/(1+2\alpha)$ is studied as a function of a parameter $\alpha$ introduced in this model. In addition to the recent…
We explore the effects of a positive cosmological constant on astrophysical and cosmological configurations described by a polytropic equation of state. We derive the conditions for equilibrium and stability of such configurations and…
It is known that there is a quantum mechanical tunneling process which, through nucleation of a membrane, induces a transition between two de Sitter spaces, lowering the cosmological constant. It is shown in this paper that a different,…
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 present a novel source of dark energy, which is motivated by the prevalence of hidden sectors in string theory models and is consistent with all of the proposed swampland conjectures. Thermal effects hold a light hidden sector scalar at…
We consider a dynamical approach to the cosmological constant. There is a scalar field with a potential whose minimum occurs at a generic, but negative, value for the vacuum energy, and it has a non-standard kinetic term whose coefficient…
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…
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…
Observations suggest that nearly seventy per cent of the energy density in the universe is unclustered and exerts negative pressure. Theoretical understanding of this component (`dark energy'), which is driving an accelerated expansion of…
The concordance model of cosmology suffers from the major theoretical problems surrounding the observed value and recent emergence of a cosmological constant. In this paper we present a novel approach, which explains more naturally its…
In this article the cosmological constant problems, as well as the astronomical evidence for a cosmologically significant homogeneous exotic energy density with negative pressure (quintessence), are reviewed for a broad audience of…