Related papers: The Stabilizing Effect of Gravity Made Simple
This article provides a cartoon of the quantization of General Relativity using the ideas of effective field theory. These ideas underpin the use of General Relativity as a theory from which precise predictions are possible, since they show…
We present a simple and intuitive description of both, the Schwinger effect and false vacuum decay through bubble nucleation, as tunneling problems in one-dimensional relativistic quantum mechanics. Both problems can be described by an…
In this paper we prove the nonlinear stability of Minkowski space-time with a translation Killing field. In the presence of such a symmetry, the 3 + 1 vacuum Einstein equations reduce to the 2 + 1 Einstein equations with a scalar field. We…
A new representation for canonical gravity and supergravity is presented, which combines advantages of Ashtekar's and the Wheeler~DeWitt representation: it has a nice geometric structure and the singular metric problem is absent. A formal…
Recently the authors have introduced a new gauged supergravity theory with a positive definite potential in D=6, obtained through a generalised Kaluza-Klein reduction from D=7. Of particular interest is the fact that this theory admits…
In the thin-wall approximation, the decay of a gravitating false vacuum to a lower-energy state is affected by the cosmological horizon structure in both spaces. The nucleation radius of a bubble of true vacuum depends on the surface…
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…
We investigate the details of the canonical quantization of effective quantum field theories in anti-de Sitter spacetime, emphasizing the stability of the quantum vacuum. We take the scalar and Maxwell fields as examples. For the…
Gravitational collapse into a black hole has been extensively studied with classical sources. We develop a new formalism to simulate quantum fields forming a black hole. By choosing a convenient coherent state, this formalism taps into…
A recent study of supersymmetric domain walls in $N=1$ supergravity theories revealed a new class of domain walls interpolating between supersymmetric vacua with different non-positive cosmological constants. We classify three classes of…
General relativity is highly successful in explaining a wide range of gravitational phenomena including the gravitational waves emitted by binary systems and the shadows cast by supermassive black holes. From a modern perspective the theory…
We derive the decay rate of an unstable phase of a quantum field theory in the presence of an impurity in the thin-wall approximation. This derivation is based on the how the impurity changes the (flat spacetime) geometry relative to case…
The existence of spacetime singularities is one of the biggest problems of nowadays physics. According to Penrose, each physical singularity should be covered by a "cosmic censor" which prevents any external observer from perceiving their…
The $q$-theory formalism aims to describe the thermodynamics and dynamics of the deep quantum vacuum. The thermodynamics leads to an exact cancellation of the quantum-field zero-point-energies in equilibrium, which partly solves the main…
In 1992, E.E.Podkletnov and R.Nieminen find that, under certain conditions, ceramic superconductor with composite structure has revealed weak shielding properties against gravitational force. In classical Newton's theory of gravity and even…
A satisfactory theory of quantum gravity may necessitate a drastic modification of our perception of space-time, by giving it a foamy structure at distances comparable to the Planck length. It is argued in this essay that the experimental…
We consider a wide class of four-dimensional effective field theories in which gravity is coupled to multiple four-forms and their dual scalar fields, with membrane sources charged under the corresponding three-form potentials. Four-form…
We explore a toy model mechanism of geometric cancellation, alleviating the (classical) cosmological constant problem. To do so, we assume at primordial times that vacuum energy fuels an inflationary quadratic hilltop potential nonminimally…
In quantum gravity perturbation theory in Newton's constant G is known to be badly divergent, and as a result not very useful. Nevertheless some of the most interesting phenomena in physics are often associated with non-analytic behavior in…
We discuss the moduli stabilization in a de Sitter compactification model obtained coupling D-dimensional gravity to scalar and gauge fields. This class of models is characterized by two moduli: one related to the volume of the internal…