Related papers: Quantum fields and the cosmological constant
Motivated by some recent speculative attempts to model the dark energy, scalar fields with negative kinetic energy coupled to gravity without a cosmological constant are considered. It is shown that in the presence of an ordinary fluid, any…
New quantum modes of the free scalar field are derived in a special time-evolution picture that may be introduced in moving charts of de Sitter backgrounds. The wave functions of these new modes are solutions of the Klein-Gordon equation…
We show how the scalar field, a candidate of quintessence, in a proposed model of the scalar-tensor theories of gravity provides a way to understand a small but nonzero cosmological constant as indicated by recent observations. A particular…
A positive cosmological constant simplifies the asymptotics of forever expanding cosmological solutions of the Einstein equations. In this paper a general mathematical analysis on the level of formal power series is carried out for vacuum…
The cosmological constant problem can be understood as the failure of the decoupling principle behind effective field theory, so that some quantities in the low-energy theory are extremely sensitive to the high-energy properties. While this…
We consider plane-symmetric spacetimes satisfying Einstein's field equations with positive cosmological constant, when the matter is a fluid whose pressure is equal to its mass-energy density (i.e. a so-called stiff fluid). We study the…
We study the Einstein-scalar field system with positive cosmological constant and spherically symmetric characteristic initial data given on a truncated null cone. We prove well-posedness, global existence and exponential decay in (Bondi)…
The observed large-scale structure in our Universe is seen as a result of quantum fluctuations amplified by spacetime evolution. This, and related problems in cosmology, asks for an understanding of the quantum fields of the standard model…
The semiclassical gravity describes gravitational back-reactions of the classical spacetime interacting with quantum matter fields but the quantum effects on the background is formally defined as higher derivative curvatures. These induce…
We revisit the quantum theory of a massive, minimally coupled scalar field, propagating on the Planck-era isotropic cosmological quantum spacetime which transitions to a classical spacetime in later times. The quantum effects modify the…
We consider $d$-dimensional static spacetimes in Einstein gravity with a cosmological constant in the presence of a minimally coupled massless scalar field. The spacetimes have a $(d-2)$-dimensional base manifold given by an Einstein space…
We exhibit a mechanism which dynamically adjusts cosmological constant toward $0^+$. The adjustment is quantum-mechanical, discharging cosmological constant in random discrete steps. It renders de Sitter space unstable, and triggers its…
The cosmological constant problem is examined under the assumption that the extrinsic curvature of the space-time contributes to the vacuum. A compensation mechanism based on a variable cosmological term is proposed. Under a suitable…
We consider a scalar quantum field theory, in which the interaction takes the form of a field cutoff; the energy diverges to infinity whenever the value of the field at some point falls outside a finite interval. In a simple…
The quantum break-time of a system is the time-scale after which its true quantum evolution departs from the classical mean field evolution. For capturing it, a quantum resolution of the classical background - e.g., in terms of a coherent…
We discuss the issue of unitarity in particular quantum cosmological models with scalar field. The time variable is recovered, in this context, by using the Schutz's formalism for a radiative fluid. Two cases are considered: a phantom…
The properties of the quantum universe on extremely small spacetime scales are studied in the semi-classical approach to the well-defined quantum model. It is shown that near the initial cosmological singularity point quantum gravity…
We discuss the notion that quantum fields may induce an effective time-dependent cosmological constant which decays from a large initial value. It is shown that such cosmological models are viable in a non-de Sitter spacetime.
Fluctuation terms and higher moments of a quantum state imply corrections to the classical equations of motion that may have implications in early-universe cosmology, for instance in the state-dependent form of effective potentials. In…
A quantum theory of asymptotically flat space-times is presented using the solutions of the Null Surface Formulation (NSF) field equations in a perturbative scheme. Free-field commutation relations are given for the null free data of NSF at…