Related papers: Inconsistencies from a Running Cosmological Consta…
Quantum gravity is expected to be necessary in order to understand situations where classical general relativity breaks down. In particular in cosmology one has to deal with initial singularities, i.e. the fact that the backward evolution…
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…
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…
We present arguments that show what the running of the cosmological constant means when quantum general relativity is formulated following the prescription developed by Feynman.
The cosmological constant presents one of the most fascinating and confounding problems in physics. A straightforward, seemingly robust prediction of quantum mechanics and general relativity is that the vacuum energy gravitates. Therefore,…
Recently, a new framework for describing the multiverse has been proposed which is based on the principles of quantum mechanics. The framework allows for well-defined predictions, both regarding global properties of the universe and…
The cosmological constant problem is examined under the assumption that the extrinsic curvature of the space-time contributes to the vacuum. A compensation mechanism based on a variable cosmological term is proposed. Under a suitable…
The Cosmological Constant problem can be solved once we require that the full standard Einstein Hilbert lagrangian, gravity plus matter, is multiplied by a total derivative. We analyze such a picture writing the total derivative as the…
Fundamental constants are a cornerstone of our physical laws. Any constant varying in space and/or time would reflect the existence of an almost massless field that couples to matter. This will induce a violation of the universality of free…
It is shown that the one-loop effective action of unimodular gravity is the same as that of ordinary gravity, restricted to unimodular metrics. The only difference is in the treatment of the global scale degree of freedom and of the…
We explore the infrared limit of quantum gravity in presence of a cosmological constant or effective potential for scalar fields. For a positive effective scalar potential, one-loop perturbation theory around flat space is divergent due to…
Within the holographic cosmology paradigm, specifically the model of McFadden and Skenderis, but more generally than that, the cosmological constant is found to naturally flow from a large value, to a small value, which can even be as low…
The problem of the cosmological constant appears in a new light in Unimodular Gravity. In particular, the zero momentum piece of the potential (that is, the constant piece independent of the matter fields) does not automatically produce a…
Within the Quantum Field Theory context the idea of a "cosmological constant" (CC) evolving with time looks quite natural as it just reflects the change of the vacuum energy with the typical energy of the universe. In the particular frame…
Within a perturbative cosmological regime of loop quantum gravity corrections to effective constraints are computed. This takes into account all inhomogeneous degrees of freedom relevant for scalar metric modes around flat space and results…
A central aspect of the cosmological constant problem is to understand why vacuum energy does not gravitate. In order to account for this observation, while allowing for nontrivial dynamics of the quantum vacuum, we motivate a novel…
Recently some hidden inconsistencies in high energy physics and cosmology have been articulated by several scholars. If we follow the usual description we get an unacceptably high cosmological constant as was noticed by Weinberg and others…
We provide an analytical solution to the quantum dynamics of a flat Friedmann-Lema\^itre- Robertson-Walker model with a massless scalar field in the presence of a small and positive cosmological constant, in the context of Loop Quantum…
In this paper, we consider the Wheeler-DeWitt equation modified by a deformation of the second quantized canonical commutation relations. Such modified commutation relations are induced by a Generalized Uncertainty Principle. Since the…
We use the mathematical framework of loop quantum gravity (LQG) to study the quantization of three dimensional (Riemannian) gravity with positive cosmological constant (Lambda>0). We show that the usual regularization techniques (successful…