Related papers: Hiding the cosmological constant
Contracting cosmologies are known to be flawed with a shear instability, where the contribution from the anisotropic stress to the overall energy density grows as $a^{-6}$, with $a$ the scale factor. Classically, whether or not this…
The evolution of a flat, isotropic and homogeneous universe is studied. The background geometry in the early phases of the universe is conjectured to be filled with causal bulk viscous cosmological fluid and dark energy. The energy density…
Subject of this contribution is to demonstrate that the observed faintness of the supernovae at the high redshift can be considered as a manifestation of quantum effects at cosmological scales. We show that observed redshift distribution of…
We consider a higher dimensional gravity theory with a negative kinetic energy scalar field and a cosmological constant. We find that the theory admits an exact cosmological solution for the scale factor of our universe. It has the feature…
A special class of conformal gravity theories is proposed to solve the long standing problem of the fine-tuned cosmological constant. In the proposed model time evolution of the inflaton field leaves behind a nearly vanishing, but finite…
The cosmological constant, i.e., the energy density stored in the true vacuum state of all existing fields in the Universe, is the simplest and the most natural possibility to describe the current cosmic acceleration. However, despite its…
We discuss the effect of super-Hubble cosmological fluctuations on the locally measured Hubble expansion rate. We consider a large bare cosmological constant in the early universe in the presence of scalar field matter (the dominant matter…
This article discusses density perturbations in inflationary models, offering a pedagogical description of how these perturbations are generated by quantum fluctuations in the early universe. A key feature of inflation is that that rapid…
General relativity postulates the Minkowski space-time to be the standard flat geometry against which we compare all curved space-times and the gravitational ground state where particles, quantum fields and their vacuum states are primarily…
We are at a specific period of modern cosmology, during which the large increase of the amount of data leads to the idea that the determination of cosmological parameters has been achieved with a rather good precision. There is a large…
In most current models of inflation based on a weakly self-coupled scalar matter field minimally coupled to gravity, the period of inflation lasts so long that, at the beginning of the inflationary period, the physical wavelengths of…
It is possible that there may be differences in the fundamental physical parameters from one side of the observed universe to the other. I show that the cosmological constant is likely to be the most sensitive of the physical parameters to…
We propose a phenomenological approach to the cosmological constant problem based on generally covariant non-local and acausal modifications of four-dimensional gravity at enormous distances. The effective Newton constant becomes very small…
An improved Hamiltonian constraint operator is introduced in loop quantum cosmology. Quantum dynamics of the spatially flat, isotropic model with a massless scalar field is then studied in detail using analytical and numerical methods. The…
A strictly linear evolution of the cosmological scale factor is surprisingly an excellent fit to a host of cosmological observations. Any model that can support such a coasting presents itself as a falsifiable model as far as classical…
Quantum vacuum fluctuations tend to be strongly anti-correlated, which reduces their observable effects. However, time dependence can upset the cancellation of these anti-correlated fluctuations and greatly enhance their effects. This form…
The regularized vacuum fluctuation related to a conformally coupled massless scalar field defined on a space-time with dynamical horizon is computed with respect a radially moving observer in a generic flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker…
In addressing the cosmological constant problem, we propose that the discrepancy between the theoretical and observed values can be ascribed to the inherent uncertainty in the spacetime metric. Mach's principle, which posits that mass…
It is suggested that the vacuum expectation of the quantum vacuum energy-momentum is zero, but quantum fluctuations give rise to a space-time curvature equivalent to that of a cosmological constant or dark energy. Calculations within…
The cosmological constant (term) is the simplest way, presently known, to illustrate the accelerating expansion of the universe. However, because of/despite its simple appearance, there is much confusion surrounding its essence. Theorists…