Related papers: Lectures on the Cosmological Constant Problem
The cosmological constant is not an absolute constant. The gravitating part of the vacuum energy is adjusted to the energy density of matter and to other types of the perturbations of the vacuum. We discuss how the vacuum energy responds…
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…
A scenario based on the scale invariance for explaining the vanishing cosmological constant (CC) is discussed. I begin with a notice on the miraculous fact of the CC problem that the vacuum energies totally vanish at each step of…
The Standard Model of particle physics and the theory of General Relativity (GR) currently provide a good description of almost all phenomena of particle physics and gravitation that have received controlled experimental tests. However, the…
We study the behavior of a general gravitational action, including quadratic terms in the curvature, supplemented by a compact scalar field in 4+1 dimensions. The generalized Einstein equation for this system admits solutions which are…
Strong field (exact) solutions of the gravitational field equations of General Relativity in the presence of a Cosmological Constant are investigated. In particular, a full exact solution is derived within the inhomogeneous Szekeres-Szafron…
We analyse cosmological perturbations around a homogeneous and isotropic background for scalar-tensor, vector-tensor and bimetric theories of gravity. Building on previous results, we propose a unified view of the effective parameters of…
In Chapter 1 I present the current picture of the universe and briefly review the cosmological constant problem and some of the theories proposed to solve it. The following Chapters essentially contain the published papers with some…
We propose a new generalisation of general relativity which incorporates a variation in both the speed of light in vacuum (c) and the gravitational constant (G) and which is both covariant and Lorentz invariant. We solve the generalised…
Recent data on supernovae favor high values of the cosmological constant. Spacetimes with a cosmological constant have non-relativistic kinematics quite different from Galilean kinematics. De Sitter spacetimes, vacuum solutions of…
We argue that the cosmological constant problem can be solved in a braneworld model with infinite-volume extra dimensions, avoiding no-go arguments applicable to theories that are four-dimensional in the infrared. Gravity on the brane…
The flatness and cosmological constant problems are solved with varying speed of light c, gravitational coupling strength G and cosmological parameter Lambda, by explicitly assuming energy conservation of observed matter. The present…
The observed value of the cosmological constant poses large theoretical problems. We find that topology of the Universe provides a natural source for it. Restricting dynamically an Einstein-Cartan gravity to General Relativity in our…
Witten has presented an argument for the vanishing of the cosmological constant in 2+1 dimensions. This argument is crucially tied to the specific properties of (2+1)-dimensional gravity. We argue that this reasoning can be deconstructed to…
We consider general curvature-invariant modifications of the Einstein-Hilbert action that become important only in regions of extremely low space-time curvature. We investigate the far future evolution of the universe in such models,…
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…
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…
A unified theory of four-dimensional gravity together with the standard model is presented, with supersymmetry breaking of M-theory at a TeV. Masses of the the known particles are derived. The cosmological constant is quantum generated to…
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…
If the fine structure constant $\alpha =e^2/(\hbar c)$ were to change, then a number of interpretations would be possible, attributing this change either to variations in the electron charge, the dielectric constant of the vacuum, the speed…