Related papers: Sequestering effects on and of vacuum decay
We discuss aspects of the problem of assigning probabilities in eternal inflation. In particular, we investigate a recent suggestion that the lowest energy de Sitter vacuum in the landscape is effectively stable. The associated proposal for…
In this essay we propose that the theory of gravity's vacuum is described by a de Sitter geometry. Under this assumption we consider an adjustment mechanism able to screen any value of the vacuum energy of the matter fields. We discuss the…
Two sides of cosmological constant problem are discussed: a mysterious compensation of all contributions to vacuum energy with the accuracy of 100-50 orders of magnitude and a surprising equality of a constant vacuum energy density to the…
We review various aspects of de Sitter spacetime in string theory: its status as an effective field theory spacetime solution, its relation to the vacuum energy problem in string theory, its (global) holographic definition in terms of two…
The cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is a measure of the energy density of the vacuum. Therefore properties of the energy of the system in the metastable vacuum state reflect properties of $\Lambda = \Lambda(t)$. We analyze properties of the…
We explore the symmetry reduced form of a non-perturbative solution to the constraints of quantum gravity corresponding to quantum de Sitter space. The system has a remarkably precise analogy with the non-relativistic formulation of a…
By regarding the vacuum as a perfect fluid with equation of state p=-rho, de Sitter's cosmological model is quantized. Our treatment differs from previous ones in that it endows the vacuum with dynamical degrees of freedom. Instead of being…
It is suggested that the true ground state of the world has exactly vanishing vacuum energy and that the cosmological constant that seems to have been observed is due to our region of the universe being stuck in a false vacuum, whose energy…
The $q$-theory approach to the cosmological constant problem is reconsidered. The new observation is that the effective classical $q$-theory gets modified due to the backreaction of quantum-mechanical particle production by spacetime…
We find the novel effect on the decay of a false vacuum in view of quantum field theory, which is induced by a field coupling to the scalar field related to a first-order phase transition. This effect of the environment can never be…
It is well known that string theories naturally compactify on anti-de Sitter spaces, and yet cosmological observations show no evidence of a negative cosmological constant in the early Universe's evolution. In this letter we present two…
For landscapes of field theory vacua, we identify an effect that can greatly enhance the decay rates to wildly distant minima--so much so that such transitions may dominate over transitions to near neighbors. We exhibit these 'giant leaps'…
Examining the reverse evolution of the universe from the present, long before reaching Planck density dynamics one expects major modifications from the de-coherent thermal equations of state, suggesting a prior phase that has macroscopic…
We show that the vacuum energy of a free quantized field of very low mass can significantly alter the recent expansion of the universe. The effective action of the theory is obtained from a non-perturbative sum of scalar curvature terms in…
Time-space noncommutativity leads to quantisation of time and energy nonconservation when time is conjugate to a compact spatial direction like a circle. In this context energy is conserved only modulo some fixed unit. Such a possibility…
The existence of a landscape of metastable vacua raises the possibility that our Universe may have undergone quantum vacuum decay at late times. This work explores how such a transition can be tested with cosmological observables, focusing…
We show that the warped de Sitter compactifications are possible under certain conditions in D-dimensional gravitational theory coupled to a dilaton, a form field strength, and a cosmological constant. We find that the solutions of field…
Despite the many efforts, our theoretical understanding of the ultimate nature of the dark energy component of the universe still lags well behind the astounding experimental evidence achieved from the increasingly sophisticated…
In order to solve the fine-tuning problem of the cosmological constant, we propose a simple model with the vacuum energy non-minimally coupled to the inflaton field. In this model, the vacuum energy decays to the inflaton during…
Recent LHC results concerning the mass of the Higgs boson indicate that the vacuum in our Universe may be unstable. We analyze properties of unstable vacuum states from the point of view of the quantum theory of unstable states. From the…