Related papers: A small cosmological constant from Abelian symmetr…
We discuss a consistent theory for a self-interacting vector field, breaking an Abelian symmetry in such a way to obtain an interesting behavior for its longitudinal polarization. In an appropriate decoupling limit, the dynamics of the…
We study Abelian strings in a fixed de Sitter background. We find that the gauge and Higgs fields extend smoothly across the cosmological horizon and that the string solutions have oscillating scalar fields outside the cosmological horizon…
Banks has proposed a relation between the scale of supersymmetry breaking and the cosmological constant in de Sitter space. His proposal has a natural extension to a general FRW cosmology, in which the supersymmetry breaking scale is…
A quantum theory of massive Abelian vector bosons with non-minimal couplings to gravity has been studied within an evolving, isotropic, and homogeneous gravitational background. The vectors may play a role of dark matter if stabilizing…
The cosmological constant $\Lambda$ modifies certain properties of large astrophysical rotating configurations with ellipsoidal geometries, provided the objects are not too compact. Assuming an equilibrium configuration and so using the…
We consider theories containing scalar fields interacting with vector or with tensor degrees of freedom, equipped with symmetries that prevent the propagation of linearized scalar excitations around solutions of the equations of motion. We…
We observe that the standard homogeneous cosmologies, those of Minkowski, de Sitter, and anti-de Sitter, which form the matrix for the Robertson--Walker scale factor, live naturally as isolated points inside a larger family of conformally…
Horndeski derived a most general vector-tensor theory in which the vector field respects the gauge symmetry and the resulting dynamical equations are of second order. The action contains only one free parameter, $\lambda$, that determines…
We study gravitational theories with a cosmological constant and the Gauss-Bonnet curvature squared term and analyze the possibility of de Sitter expanding spacetime with a constant internal space. We find that there are two branches of the…
We present black hole type solutions in the scalar-tensor theory with nonminimal derivative coupling to the Einstein tensor. The effects of the nonminimal derivative coupling appear in the large scales, while the solutions approach those in…
Black hole configurations offer insights on the non-linear aspects of gravitational theories, and can suggest testable predictions for modifications of General Relativity. In this work, we examine exact black hole configurations in…
We consider the standard model with local scale invariance. The theory shows exact scale invariance of dimensionally regulated action. We show that massless gauge fields, which may be abelian or non-abelian, lead to vanishing contribution…
We generalize the standard model of particle physics such it displays global scale invariance. The gravitational action is also suitably modified such that it respects this symmetry. This model is interesting since the cosmological constant…
We investigate a scalar-vector-tensor theory in which matter is minimally coupled to a Jordan-frame metric, while a massive vector sector interacts with the baryonic current. We show that the conformal scalar coupling modifies the physical…
Based on the studies in Type IIB string theory phenomenology, we conjecture that a good fraction of the meta-stable de Sitter vacua in the cosmic stringy landscape tend to have a very small cosmological constant $\Lambda$ when compared to…
We investigate spontaneous symmetry breaking in a conformally invariant gravitational model. In particular, we use a conformally invariant scalar tensor theory as the vacuum sector of a gravitational model to examine the idea that…
In contrast to scalar and tensor modes, vector modes of linear perturbations around an expanding Friedmann--Robertson--Walker universe decay. This makes them largely irrelevant for late time cosmology, assuming that all modes started out at…
We study the phase structure of the abelian Higgs model in three dimensions based on perturbation theory and a set of gauge independent gap equations for Higgs boson and vector boson masses. Contrary to the non-abelian Higgs model, the…
A large value of the cosmological constant (CC) is induced in the Standard Model (SM) of Elementary Particle Physics because of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking. To provide a small value of the observable CC one has to introduce the vacuum…
We probe the cosmological consequences of a recently proposed class of solutions to the cosmological constant problem. In these models, the universe undergoes a long period of inflation followed by a contraction and a bounce that sets the…