Related papers: Midisuperspace foam and the cosmological constant
The standard formulation of the cosmological constant problem is based on one critical assumption---the spacetime is homogeneous and isotropic, which is true only on cosmological scales. However, this problem is caused by extremely small…
A mechanism for suppressing the cosmological constant is described, using a superconducting analogy in which fermions coupled to gravitons are in an unstable false vauum. The coupling of the fermions to gravitons and a screened attractive…
A mechanism for suppressing the cosmological constant is developed, based on an analogy with a superconducting phaseshift in which free fermions coupled perturbatively to a weak gravitational field are in an unstable false vacuum state. The…
Based on the assertion that the cosmological constant problem is essentially a quantum gravity problem, the framework which addresses the cosmological constant problem should also bear a picture for the ``quantum space-time''. In this talk…
At Planck-scale, spacetime is "foamy" due to quantum fluctuations predicted by quantum gravity. Here we consider the possibility of using spacetime foam-induced phase incoherence of light from distant galaxies and gamma-ray bursters to…
It is argued that the fundamental length scale for the quantum dynamics of spacetime need not be equal to the Planck length. Possibly, this new length scale is related to a nonvanishing cosmological constant or vacuum energy density.
Spacetime is composed of a fluctuating arrangement of bubbles or loops called spacetime foam, or quantum foam. We use the holographic principle to deduce its structure, and show that the result is consistent with gedanken experiments…
If spacetime undergoes quantum fluctuations, an electromagnetic wavefront will acquire uncertainties in direction as well as phase as it propagates through spacetime. These uncertainties can show up in interferometric observations of…
A recent preprint by Wang and Unruh [arXiv:1911.06110] contains a number of criticisms of my paper, "Hiding the cosmological constant" [Phys. Rev. Lett. 123 (2019) 131302, arXiv:1809.08277]. While Wang and Unruh suggest an interesting…
The cosmological constant problem is a fundamental issue that has puzzled researchers in the fields of theoretical physics and cosmology for a long time. It arises from the discrepancy between the observed value of the cosmological constant…
It is argued in a recent letter Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 131302(2019) that the effect of a large cosmological constant can be naturally hidden in Planck scale curvature fluctuations. We point out that there are problems with the author's…
The expectation that it should not be possible to gain experimental insight on the structure of space-time at Planckian distance scales has been recently challenged by several studies. With respect to space-time fluctuations, one of the…
A phenomenological model is proposed to explain the recent observed cosmological variation of the fine structure constant as an effect of the quantum vacuum, assuming a flat universe with cosmological constant $\Lambda$ in the cases…
Spacetime foam manifests itself in a variety of ways. It has some attributes of a turbulent fluid. It is the source of the holographic principle. Cosmologically it may play a role in explaining why the energy density has the critical value,…
The current observations seem to suggest that the universe has a positive cosmological constant of the order of $H_0^2$ while the most natural value for the cosmological constant will be $L_P^{-2}$ where $L_P = (G\hbar/c^3)^{1/2}$ is the…
An effective model for the spacetime foam is constructed in terms of nonlocal interactions in a classical background. In the weak-coupling approximation, the evolution of the low-energy density matrix is determined by a master equation that…
Plausibly spacetime is "foamy" on small distance scales, due to quantum fluctuations. We elaborate on the proposal to detect spacetime foam by looking for seeing disks in the images of distant quasars and AGNs. This is a null test in the…
In the minisuperspace models of quantum cosmology, the absence of time in the Wheeler-DeWitt (constraint) equation, is the main point leading to the generally accepted conclusion that in the quantum cosmology there is no possibility to…
Recent observations of high-redshift supernovae seem to suggest that the global geometry of the Universe may be affected by a `cosmological constant', which acts to accelerate the expansion rate with time. But these data by themselves still…
One aspect of the quantum nature of spacetime is its "foaminess" at very small scales. Many models for spacetime foam are defined by the accumulation power $\alpha$, which parameterizes the rate at which Planck-scale spatial uncertainties…