Related papers: The cosmological constant is probably still zero
The cosmological constant and the Higgs mass seem unnaturally small and anthropically selected. We show that both can be efficiently scanned in Quantum Field Theories with a large enough number of vacua controllable thanks to approximated…
We consider a recent proposal to solve the cosmological constant problem within the context of brane world scenarios with infinite volume extra dimensions. In such theories bulk can be supersymmetric even if brane supersymmetry is…
We argue that in the context of string theory a large number N of connected degenerate vacua that mix will lead to a ground state with much lower energy, essentially because of the standard level repulsion of quantum theory for the…
Most of the calculations done to obtain the value of the cosmological constant use methods of quantum gravity, a theory that has not been established as yet, and a variety of results are usually obtained. The numerical value of the…
Following an earlier suggestion by Dolgov, we present a specific model of two massless vector fields which dynamically cancel a cosmological constant of arbitrary magnitude and sign. Flat Minkowski spacetime appears asymptotically as an…
We consider the cosmological dynamics associated with volume weighted measures of eternal inflation, in the Bousso-Polchinski model of the string theory landscape. We find that this measure predicts that observers are most likely to find…
It will be argued here that the cosmological constant problem exists because of the way the vacuum is defined in quantum field theory. It has been known for some time that for QFT to be gauge invariant certain terms--such as part of the…
We consider an effective field theory description of gravity coupled to a scalar field with volume-preserving diffeomorphism and Weyl invariances. The smallness of the cosmological constant is achieved when the potential of the scalar is…
One hope to solve the cosmological constant problem is to identify a symmetry principle, based on which the cosmological constant can be reduced either to zero, or to a tiny value. Here, we note that requiring that the vacuum state is…
I argue that a solution to the cosmological constant problem is to assume that the expectation value of the quantum vacuum stress-energy tensor is proportional to the metric tensor with a negative energy density and positive pressure. This…
A modified-gravity theory is considered with a four-form field strength F, a variable gravitational coupling parameter G(F), and a standard matter action. This theory provides a concrete realization of the general vacuum variable q as 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…
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…
In no--scale supergravity global symmetries protect local supersymmetry and a zero value for the cosmological constant. We consider the breakdown of these symmetries and present a minimal SUGRA model motivated by the multiple point…
We show that a four-dimensional equation of state for a cosmological constant term arises from a perfect fluid in the bulk in the context of a gravity model where the scalar curvature is non-minimally coupled to the perfect fluid Lagrangian…
A gravity theory without masses can be constructed in Minkowski spaces using a geometric Minkowski potential. The related affine spacelike spheres can be seen as the regions of the Minkowski spacelike vectors characterized by a constant…
In BP models with hundreds of fluxes, we compute the effects of cosmological dynamics on the probability distribution of landscape vacua. Starting from generic initial conditions, we find that most fluxes are dynamically driven into a…
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…
The cosmological constant problem is one of the greatest challenges in contemporary physics, since it is deeply rooted in the problematic interplay between quantum fields and gravity. The aim of this work is to review the key conceptual…
We find the membrane equations which describe the leading order in $1/D$ dynamics of black holes in the $D\rightarrow\infty$ limit for the most general four-derivative theory of gravity in the presence of a cosmological constant. We work up…