Related papers: Apocalypse soon
Decaying vacuum models are a class of models that incorporate the vacuum energy density as a time-evolving entity that has the potential to explain the entire evolutionary history of the universe in a single framework. A general solution to…
In this work we present a model of the universe in which dark energy is modelled explicitely with both a dynamical quintessence field and a cosmological constant. Our results confirm the possibility of a future collapsing universe (for a…
A cosmological model that aims at solving the coincidence problem should show that dark energy and dark matter follow the same scaling solution from some time onward. At the same time, the model should contain a sufficiently long…
In order to solve the fine-tuning problem of the cosmological constant, we propose a simple model with the vacuum energy non-minimally coupled to the inflaton field. In this model, the vacuum energy decays to the inflaton during…
Among the several proposals to solve the incompatibility between the observed small value of the cosmological constant and the huge value obtained by quantum field theories, we can find the idea of a decaying vacuum energy density, leading…
We propose a new UV-complete dark energy model which is \underbar{\it neither} a cosmological constant nor a slowly rolling scalar field. Our dark energy is the flux of a top form in a hidden sector gauge theory similar to QCD. The top form…
The concordance (LambdaCDM) model reproduces the main current cosmological observations assuming the validity of general relativity at all scales and epochs, the presence of cold dark matter, and of a cosmological constant, equivalent to a…
It is shown that a present acceleration with a past deceleration is a possible solution of the Friedmann equation by considering the Universe as a mixture of a scalar with a matter field and by including a non-equilibrium pressure term in…
The cosmological vacuum decay scenario recently proposed by Wang and Meng \cite{wm} is rediscussed. From thermodynamic arguments it is found that the $\epsilon$ parameter quantifying the vacuum decay rate must be positive in the presence of…
Previous quantum field estimations of the QCD vacuum in the expanding space-time lead to a dark energy component scaling linearly with the Hubble parameter, which gives the correct figure for the observed cosmological term. Here we show…
Cosmological parameters are constrained by a wide variety of observations. We examine the concordance diagram for modern measurements of the Hubble constant, the shape parameter from large scale structure, the cluster baryon fraction, and…
Astronomical observations strongly suggest that our universe is now accelerating and contains a substantial admixture of dark vacuum energy. Using numerical simulations to study this newly consolidated cosmological model (with a constant…
We propose a new cosmological model with a time-dependent cosmological constant ($\Lambda\propto 1/t^2$), which starting at the Planck time as $\Lambda_{Pl}\sim M^2_{Pl}$, evolves to the present-day allowed value of…
The description of dark matter as a pressure-less fluid and of dark energy as a cosmological constant, both minimally coupled to gravity, constitutes the basis of the concordance $\Lambda\text{CDM}$ model. However, the concordance model is…
It is a mystery why the density of matter and the density of vacuum energy are nearly equal today when they scale so differently during the expansion of the Universe. We suggest a paradigm that might allow for a non-anthropic solution to…
Because of an old quasar APM 08279+5255 at $z=3.91$, some dark energy models face the challenge of the cosmic age problem. It has been shown by Wei and Zhang [Phys. Rev. D {\bf 76}, 063003 (2007)] that the holographic dark energy model is…
Arguably our current cosmological paradigm, the so-called $\Lambda$CDM `concordance model', faces an existential crisis. This has largely been brought about by its reliance on the twin concepts of dark matter and dark energy, and the…
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 high-quality cosmological data, which became available in the last decade, have thrusted upon us a rather preposterous composition for the universe which poses one of the greatest challenges theoretical physics has ever faced: the…
A new speculative model for the expansion of our universe has been under development by the author for the last two decades, which correctly predicts astronomical measurements with no dark matter or dark energy. This new closed model (no…