Related papers: Quintessence and the cosmological constant
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…
Many candidate models for dark energy are based on the existence of a classical scalar field. In the context of Quantum Field Theory (QFT), we briefly discus the condensation of such a field from a light quantum scalar field produced by…
Quintessence, a time-varying energy component that may account for the accelerated expansion of the universe, can be characterized by its equation of state and sound speed. In this paper, we show that if the quintessence density is at least…
We work in the framework of a simple vector-tensor theory. The parametrized post-Newtonian approximation of this theory is identical to that of general relativity. Our attention is focused on cosmology. In an homogeneous isotropic universe,…
The quantum field theory prediction of the cosmological constant is 120 orders of magnitude higher than the observed value. This is known as the cosmological constant problem. Here, we deal with the cosmological constant as a scalar field…
We investigate if the fluctuations of the scalar field mediating quintessence -- the cosmon -- can play an important role in cosmology. Small fluctuations with short wavelength behave similar to a relativistic gas. In contrast, the…
In this paper, dark energy is modelled via a spherically symmetric quintessence scalar field $\varphi$, the dynamics of which are found to be analogous to a pendulum. This is due to a driving axion potential $V(\left|\varphi\right|)$, whose…
We discuss some of the issues which we encounter when we try to invoke the scalar-tensor theories of gravitation as a theoretical basis of quintessence. One of the advantages of appealing to these theories is that they allow us to implement…
Dynamical dark energy (DE) has been proposed to explain various aspects of the cosmological constant (CC) problem(s). For example, it is very difficult to accept that a strictly constant Lambda-term constitutes the ultimate explanation for…
A cosmological constant fits all current dark energy data, but requires two extreme fine tunings, both of which are currently explained by anthropic arguments. Here we discuss anti-anthropic solutions to one of these problems: the cosmic…
Quantum cosmology describes universe as a relativistic object with an evolution defined by an equation for the energy density corresponding to the least action principle: (Taganov, 2008). In quantum cosmology this equation plays the same…
If the observed dark energy is a cosmological constant, the canonical state of the universe is de Sitter spacetime. In such a spacetime, quantum fluctuations that violate the null energy condition will create islands of matter that, if…
We consider a model where both dark energy and dark matter originate from the coupling of a scalar field with a non-conventional kinetic term to, both, a metric measure and a non-metric measure. An interacting dark energy/dark matter…
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…
The cosmological constant problem is the principal obstacle in the attempt to interpret dark energy as the quantum vacuum energy. We suggest that the obstacle can be removed, i.e. that the cosmological constant problem can be resolved by…
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 mystery of the cosmological constant is probably the most pressing obstacle to significantly improving the models of elementary particle physics derived from string theory. The problem arises because in the standard framework of low…
An speculative solution for the cosmological constant problem is proposed. It is argued that while the true quantum vacuum energy density is of the order of $M_P^4$, the observed classical vacuum energy density may be much smaller due to…
We examine the possibility that a significant component of the energy density of the universe has an equation-of-state different from that of matter, radiation or cosmological constant ($\Lambda$). An example is a cosmic scalar field…
Cosmology struggles with the theoretical problems generated by the observed value and recent emergence of a cosmological constant, in the standard model of cosmology, i.e. the concordance model. We propose to provide a more natural…