Related papers: A Dynamical Solution to the Problem of a Small Cos…
Observations suggest that nearly seventy per cent of the energy density in the universe is unclustered and exerts negative pressure. Theoretical understanding of this component (`dark energy'), which is driving an accelerated expansion of…
Recent cosmological observations suggest that nearly seventy per cent of the energy density in the universe is unclustered and has negative pressure. Several conceptual issues related to the modeling of this component (`dark energy'), which…
A variety of observations indicate that the universe is dominated by dark energy with negative pressure, one possibility for which is a cosmological constant. If the dark energy is a cosmological constant, a fundamental question is: Why has…
The principles of General Relativity allow for a non-vanishing cosmological constant, which can possibly be interpreted at least partially in terms of quantum-fluctuations of matter fields. Depending on sign and magnitude it can cause…
The time evolution of a cosmological scalar field can be stopped by an increasing mass of the neutrinos. This leads to a transition from a cosmological scaling solution with dynamical dark energy at early time to a cosmological constant…
In this colloquium-level account, I describe the cosmological constant problem: why is the energy of empty space at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller than several known contributions to it from the Standard Model of particle physics? I…
Within conventional big bang cosmology, it has proven to be very difficult to understand why today's cosmological constant is so small. In this paper, we show that a cyclic model of the universe can naturally incorporate a dynamical…
Recent observations confirm that our universe is flat and consists of a dark energy component with negative pressure. This dark energy is responsible for the recent cosmic acceleration as well as determines the feature of future evolution…
Recent astronomical observations of distant supernovae light-curves suggest that the expansion of the universe has recently begun to accelerate. Acceleration is created by an anti-gravitational repulsive stress, like that produced by a…
An accelerated universe should naturally have a vacuum energy density determined by its dynamical curvature. The cosmological constant is most likely a temporary description of a dynamical variable that has been drastically evolving from…
The universe appears to be accelerating, but the reason why is a complete mystery. The simplest explanation, a small vacuum energy (cosmological constant), raises three difficult issues: why the vacuum energy is so small, why it is not…
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 scale of at least 100 GeV. The actual tiny…
There are now two cosmological constant problems: (i) why the vacuum energy is so small and (ii) why it comes to dominate at about the epoch of galaxy formation. Anthropic selection appears to be the only approach that can naturally resolve…
The traditional "explanation" for the observed acceleration of the universe is the existence of a positive cosmological constant. However, this can hardly be a truly convincing explanation, as an expanding universe is not expected to have a…
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…
Observationally, the universe appears virtually critical. Yet, there is no simple explanation for this state. In this article we advance and explore the premise that the dynamics of the universe always seeks equilibrium conditions.…
Astronomical observations indicate an accelerated cosmic expansion, the cause of which is explained by the action of `dark energy'. Here we show that in discrete expanding space-time, only a tiny fraction of the vacuum fluctuations can…
Recent observations suggest that a large fraction of the energy density of the universe has negative pressure. One explanation is vacuum energy density; another is quintessence in the form of a scalar field slowly evolving down a potential.…
The early cosmic inflation, when taken along with the recent observations that the universe is currently dominated by a low density vacuum energy, leads to at least two potential problems which modern cosmology must address. First, there is…
In a previous paper (Ref. [1]) the presence of dark energy in our universe was explained as the fingerprint of a comprehensive, much older and expanding multiverse with positive spatial curvature, whose space-time is spanned by this energy,…