Related papers: Midisuperspace foam and the cosmological constant
Spacetime foam can be modeled in terms of nonlocal effective interactions in a classical nonfluctuating background. Then, the density matrix for the low-energy fields evolves, in the weak-coupling approximation, according to a master…
We provide an analytical solution to the quantum dynamics of a flat Friedmann-Lema\^itre- Robertson-Walker model with a massless scalar field in the presence of a small and positive cosmological constant, in the context of Loop Quantum…
The cosmological constant problem is explained by a theory based on the discrete space-time hypothesis. The calculated cosmological constant value is of the order of 10^-52[m]^-2 or equivalent to about 0.7 of the critical mass density. It…
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…
In a recent paper (Vigoureux et al. Int. J. Theor. Phys. 47:928, 2007) it has been suggested that the velocity of light and the expansion of the universe are two aspects of one single concept connecting space and time in the expanding…
Simple models of a classical spacetime foam are considered, which consist of identical static defects embedded in Minkowski spacetime. Plane-wave solutions of the vacuum Maxwell equations with appropriate boundary conditions at the defect…
The Planck scale is usually believed to be an unpassable wall. Putting a cutoff there and thinking of it as a quantized spacetime entity shows that. However, this is exactly the cause of many problems in quantum gravity. The cosmological…
The discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating in time is a major discovery which still awaits adequate explanation. It is generally agreed that this implies a cosmic repulsion as a result of the existence of a…
We discuss phenomenology of quantum vacuum. Phenomenology of macroscopic systems has three sources: thermodynamics, topology and symmetry. Thermodynamics of the self-sustained vacuum allows us to treat the problems related to the vacuum…
The cosmological constant problem arises because the magnitude of vacuum energy density predicted by quantum mechanics is about 120 orders of magnitude larger than the value implied by cosmological observations of accelerating cosmic…
A central aspect of the cosmological constant problem is to understand why vacuum energy does not gravitate. In order to account for this observation, while allowing for nontrivial dynamics of the quantum vacuum, we motivate a novel…
This article aims at discussing the cosmological constant problem at a pedagogical but fully technical level. We review how the vacuum energy can be regularized in flat and curved space-time and how it can be understood in terms of Feynman…
The problem of the physical nature and the cosmological constant genesis is discussed. This problem can't be solved in terms of the current quantum field theory which operates with Higgs and nonperturbative vacuum condensates and takes into…
Several lines of evidence hint that quantum gravity at very small distances may be effectively two-dimensional. I summarize the evidence for such ``spontaneous dimensional reduction,'' and suggest an additional argument coming from the…
With no free parameter (except the string scale $M_S$), dynamical flux compactification in Type IIB string theory determines both the cosmological constant (vacuum energy density) $\Lambda$ and the Planck mass $M_P$ in terms of $M_S$, thus…
I describe an approach which relates classical gravity to the quantum microstructure of spacetime. In this approach, the field equations arise from maximizing the density of states of the matter plus geometry. The former is identified using…
With the basic cosmological relations that agree with the recent observations, simple expressions are suggested concerning the value of cosmological constant($\Lambda$). A large contribution of quantum vacuum to the energy momentum tensor…
A cosmological constant in the regime of low space-time curvature is calculated in the recently proposed version of F(R) supergravity with a generic cubic function F. The F(R) supergravity is the N=1 supersymmetric extension of f(R)…
We perform a foliation of a four dimensional Riemannian space-time with respect to a discrete time which is an integer multiple of the Planck time. We find that the quantum fluctuations of the metric have a discrete energy spectrum. The…
On the occasion of a century from the proposal of General relativity by Einstein, I attempt to tackle some open issues in modern cosmology, via a toy but non-trivial model. Specifically, I would like to link together: (i) the smallness of…