Related papers: Anthropic Reasons for Non-Zero Flatness and Lambda
Recent observations of high-redshift supernovae seem to suggest that the global geometry of the Universe may be affected by a `cosmological constant', which acts to accelerate the expansion rate with time. But these data by themselves still…
The idea that the cosmological term, Lambda, should be a time dependent quantity in cosmology is a most natural one. It is difficult to conceive an expanding universe with a strictly constant vacuum energy density, namely one that 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…
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…
The cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is a free parameter in Einstein's equations of gravity. We propose to fix its value with a boundary condition: test particles should be free when outside causal contact, e.g. at infinity. Under this…
The cosmological constant $\Lambda$ used to be a freedom in Einstein's theory of general relativity, where one had a proclivity to set it to zero purely for convenience. The signs of $\Lambda$ or $\Lambda$ being zero would describe…
Big Bang models of the Universe predict rapid domination by curvature, a paradox known as the flatness problem. Solutions to this problem usually leave the Universe exactly flat for every practical purpose. Explaining a nearly but not…
The lower limit on the age of the universe derived from globular cluster dating techniques, which previously strongly motivated a non-zero cosmological constant, has now been dramatically reduced, allowing consistency for a flat matter…
The idea that the vacuum energy density $\rho_{\Lambda}$ could be time dependent is a most reasonable one in the expanding Universe; in fact, much more reasonable than just a rigid cosmological constant for the entire cosmic history. Being…
Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological…
By way of a complete integration of the Friedmann equations, in terms of observables, it is shown that for the cosmological constant $\Lambda > 0$ there exist non-flat FLRW models for which the total density parameter $\Omega$ remains $\sim…
The lensing effect of curved space, which can cause the angular diameter of a fixed reference length seen on the sky to reach a minimum and then increase with redshift, depends sensitively on the value of the cosmological constant,…
The influence of recent detections of a finite vacuum energy ("cosmological constant") on our formulation of anthropic conjectures, particularly the so-called Final Anthropic Principle is investigated. It is shown that non-zero vacuum…
As evidenced by a great number of works, it is common practice to assume that the Universe is flat. However, the majority of studies which make use of observational data to constrain the curvature density parameter are premised on the…
Observations conducted over the last few decades show that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. In the standard model of cosmology, this accelerated expansion is attributed to a dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant.…
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…
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…
In a previous work [1], it was speculated that the lack of homogeneity of the large-scale structure of the universe may be due to quantum fluctuations of space in the early universe. In [1], this was argued for a Friedmann-type universe for…
There are now evidences that the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ has a non-zero positive value. Alternative scenarios to a pure cosmological constant model are provided by quintessence, an effective negative pressure fluid permeating 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…