Related papers: Tuning the Cosmological Constant, Broken Scale Inv…
We present a supersymmetry-breaking scenario in which both the breaking in the hidden sector with no-scale type supergravity and that in the observable sector with gauge mediation are taken into account. The breaking scales in the hidden…
We examine the descent via membrane nucleation through a landscape of vacua where the cosmological constant is given by a combination of four-form fluxes. It has been shown that this descent can be slowed exponentially for very low…
A modified-gravity theory with a four-form field strength $F$, a variable gravitational coupling parameter $G(F)$, and a standard matter action is considered here. Maxwell and Einstein equations are now derived when including to action also…
In the quasistatic regime, generic modifications to gravity can give rise to novel scale-dependence of the gravitational field equations. Crucially, the detectability of the new scale-dependent terms hinges upon the existence of an…
We consider a generic scale invariant scalar quantum field theory and its symmetry breakdown. Based on the dimension counting identity, we give a concise proof that dilaton is exactly massless at the classical level if scale invariance is…
We discuss some of the issues which we encounter when we try to invoke the scalar-tensor theories of gravitation as a theoretical basis of quintessence. One of the advantages of appealing to these theories is that they allow us to implement…
Self tuning is one of the few methods for dynamically cancelling a large cosmological constant and yet giving an accelerating universe. Its drawback is that it tends to screen all sources of energy density, including matter. We develop a…
Effective gravitational field theories with background fields break local Lorentz symmetry and diffeomorphism invariance. Examples include Chern-Simons gravity, massive gravity, and the Standard-Model Extension (SME). The physical…
A new approach to the cosmological constant problem is proposed by modifying Einstein's theory of general relativity, using instead a scalar-tensor theory of gravitation. This theory of gravity crucially incorporates the concept of quantum…
The fundamental theory and the semiclassical description of loop quantum cosmology (LQC) have been studied in the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker and Bianchi I models. As an extension to include both anisotropy and intrinsic curvature, this…
We analyze the moduli space of spontaneously broken N=8 supergravity theories in 4 dimensions with classical Minkowski vacua. We find that all the known classical vacua, as well as the several new ones we construct here, can be connected by…
A systematic study of the different phases of Lorentz-breaking massive gravity in a curved background is performed. For tensor and vector modes, the analysis is very close to that of Minkowski space. The most interesting results are in the…
The cosmological constant and its phenomenology remain among the greatest puzzles in theoretical physics. We review how modifications of Einstein's general relativity could alleviate the different problems associated with it that result…
In quantum field theory the parameters of the vacuum action are subject to renormalization group running. In particular, the ``cosmological constant'' is not a constant in a quantum field theory context, still less should be zero. In this…
Many theories of modified gravity with higher order derivatives are usually ignored because of serious problems that appear due to an additional ghost degree of freedom. Most dangerously, it causes an immediate decay of the vacuum. However,…
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…
In a previous publication we have shown that the gauge theory of relativistic 3-Branes can be formulated in a conformally invariant way if the embedding space is six-dimensional. The implementation of conformal invariance requires the use…
The Cosmological Constant Problem is re-examined from an effective field theory perspective. While the connection between gravity and particle physics has not been experimentally probed in the quantum regime, it is severely constrained by…
A new way is proposed to cancel the cosmological constant. The proposal involves the metric determinant acting as a type of self-adjusting $q$-field without need of a fine-tuned chemical potential. Since the determinant of the metric now…
Combining the quantum scale invariance with the absence of new degrees of freedom above the electroweak scale leads to stability of the latter against perturbative quantum corrections. Nevertheless, the hierarchy between the weak and the…