Related papers: Cosmic eggs to relax the cosmological constant
We present a class of nonsingular, bouncing cosmologies that evade singularity theorems through the use of vorticity in compact extra dimensions. The vorticity combats the focusing of geodesics during the contracting phase. The construction…
A diverse set of observations now compellingly suggest that Universe possesses a nonzero cosmological constant. In the context of quantum-field theory a cosmological constant corresponds to the energy density of the vacuum, and the wanted…
The cosmological constant problem is a failure of naturalness and suggests that a fine-tuning mechanism is at work, which may also address the hierarchy problem. An example -- supported by Weinberg's successful prediction of the…
A simple model is introduced in which the cosmological constant is interpreted as a true Casimir effect on a scalar field filling the universe (e.g. $\mathbf{R} \times \mathbf{T}^p\times \mathbf{T}^q$, $\mathbf{R} \times \mathbf{T}^p\times…
Astronomical observations have shown that the expansion of the universe is at present accelerating, in a way consistent with the presence of a positive cosmological constant. This is a major puzzle, because we do not understand: why the…
We propose, within a perturbative string theory example, a cosmological way to generate a large hierarchy between the observed Planck mass and the fundamental string scale. Time evolution results in three large space dimensions, one…
We describe extended inflation and its typical problems. We then briefly review essential features of Kaluza-Klein theory, and show that it leads to a scenario of inflationary cosmology in four dimensions. The problem of stable…
In this work, we review the results of Refs [1]-[5] dedicated to the description of the early Universe cosmology induced by quantum and thermal effects in superstring theories. The present evolution of the Universe is described very…
New Ekpyrotic Cosmology is an alternative scenario of early universe cosmology in which the universe existed before the big bang. The simplest model relies on two scalar fields, whose entropy perturbation leads to a scale-invariant spectrum…
The evolution of a vacuum component of the Universe is investigated in the quantum as well as the classical regimes. Probably our Universe has arisen as a vacuum fluctuation and very probably that it has had a high symmetry for Planckian…
After a short history of the $\Lambda$-term it is explained why the (effective) cosmological constant is expected to obtain contributions from short-distance physics, corresponding to an energy at least as large as the Fermi scale. The…
Flat space cosmology spacetimes are exact time-dependent solutions of 3-dimensional gravity theories, such as Einstein gravity or topologically massive gravity. We exhibit a novel kind of phase transition between these cosmological…
We propose a new cosmological paradigm in which our observed expanding phase is originated from an initially large contracting Universe that subsequently experienced a bounce. This category of models, being geodesically complete, is…
One of the challenges of constructing a successful cyclic universe scenario is to be able to incorporate the second law of thermodynamics which typically leads to Tolman's problem of ever shrinking cycles. In this paper we construct a…
A new class of solutions to the electroweak hierarchy problem is presented that does not require either weak scale dynamics or anthropics. Dynamical evolution during the early universe drives the Higgs mass to a value much smaller than the…
The Cosmic Defect theory has been confronted with four observational constraints: primordial nuclear species abundances emerging from the big bang nucleosynthesis; large scale structure formation in the universe; cosmic microwave background…
In the standard model in universal extra dimensions (UED) the mass of the Higgs field is driven to the cutoff of the higher-dimensional theory. This re-introduces a small hierarchy since the compactification scale 1/R should not be smaller…
We consider new cosmological solutions with a collapsing, an intermediate and an expanding phase. The boundary between the expanding (collapsing) phase and the intermediate phase is seen by comoving observers as a cosmological past (future)…
The BFSS matrix model is a suggested non-perturbative definition of string theory. Starting from a thermal state of this matrix model, we show how space and time can emerge dynamically. Results from the IKKT matrix model indicate that the…
The fluctuations of the vacuum energy are treated as a non-equilibrium process and a stochastic model for the cosmological constant is presented, which yields a natural explanation for the smallness or zero value of the constant in the…