Related papers: Topological Features of the Quantum Vacuum
An one-parameter regularization freedom of the Hamiltonian constraint for loop quantum gravity is analyzed. The corresponding spatially flat, homogenous and isotropic model includes the two well-known models of loop quantum cosmology as…
In hep-th/0506040 we discussed a classically constrained model of gravity. This theory contains known solutions of General Relativity (GR), and admits solutions that are absent in GR. Here we study cosmological implications of some of these…
We develop a geometro-dynamical approach to the cosmological constant problem (CCP) by invoking a geometry induced by the energy-momentum tensor of vacuum, matter and radiation. The construction, which utilizes the dual role of the metric…
Theories of the cosmological constant fall into two classes, those in which the vacuum energy is fixed by the fundamental theory and those in which it is adjustable in some way. For each class we discuss key challenges. The string theory…
It is first argued that radiation by a uniformly accelerated charge in flat space-time indicates the need for a unified geometric theory of gravity and electromagnetism. Such a theory, based on a metric-affine $U_4$ manifold, is constructed…
In this work we suggest, without detailed mathematical analysis, a hypothesis on the physical meaning of cosmological constant. It is primarily based on a conceptual analogy with energy characteristics of the crystal lattice structure, i.e.…
Unimodular gravity is based on a modification of the usual Einstein-Hilbert action that allows one to recover general relativity with a dynamical cosmological constant. It also has the interesting property of providing, as the momentum…
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…
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 compare quantum hydrodynamics and quantum gravity. They share many common features. In particular, both have quadratic divergences, and both lead to the problem of the vacuum energy, which in the quantum gravity transforms to the…
Space-time quantum contributions to the classical Einstein equations of General Relativity are determined. The theoretical background is provided by the non-perturbative theory of manifestly-covariant quantum gravity and the…
We discuss unimodular gravity at a classical level, and in terms of its extension into the UV through an appropriate path integral representation. Classically, unimodular gravity is simply a gauge fixed version of General Relativity (GR),…
The behavior of the gravitating vacuum energy density in an expanding universe is discussed. A scenario is presented with a step-wise relaxation of the vacuum energy density. The vacuum energy density moves from plateau to plateau and…
The paper aims to provide an explanation for the tiny value of the cosmological constant and the low vacuum energy density to represent the dark energy. To accomplish this, we will search for a fundamental principle of symmetry in…
We point out that the standard formulation of the cosmological constant problem itself is problematic since it is trying to apply the very large scale homogeneous cosmological model to very small (Planck) scale phenomenon. At small scales,…
We investigate a conformal invariant gravitational model which is taken to hold at pre-inflationary era. The conformal invariance allows to make a dynamical distinction between the two unit systems (or conformal frames) usually used in…
The early universe provides an opportunity for quantum gravity to connect to observation by explaining the large-scale structure of the Universe. In the group field theory (GFT) approach, a macroscopic universe is described as a GFT…
Loop quantum gravity and cosmology are reviewed with an emphasis on evaluating the dynamics, rather than constructing it. The three crucial parts of such an analysis are (i) deriving effective equations, (ii) controlling the theory's…
Modern astronomical observations in cosmology provide increasingly strong evidence that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. Explanations of the cosmic acceleration within the framework of general relativity use the hypothesis…
It is argued that quantum gravity has an interpretation as a topological field theory provided a certain constraint from the path intergral measure is respected. The constraint forces us to couple gauge and matter fields to gravity for…