Related papers: The vacuum energy crisis
We review the cosmological evidence for a low matter density universe and a cosmological constant or dynamical vacuum energy and address the cosmolog$ coincidence problem: why is the matter density about one-half the vacuum energy {\em…
The energy densities of matter and the vacuum are currently observed to be of the same order of magnitude: $(\Omega_{m 0} \approx 0.3) \sim (\Omega_{\Lambda 0} \approx 0.7)$. The cosmological window of time during which this occurs is…
The theoretical vacuum energy density estimated on the basis of the Standard Model of particle physics and very general quantum assumptions is 59 to 123 orders of magnitude larger than the measured vacuum energy density for the observable…
In this paper, it is shown that the cosmological model that was introduced in a sequence of three earlier papers under the title, A Dust Universe Solution to the Dark Energy Problem can be used to analyse and solve the Cosmological…
The fact that the energy densities of dark energy and matter are similar currently, known as the coincidence problem, is one of the main unsolved problems of cosmology. We present here a model in which a spatial curvature of the universe…
In the standard cosmological model the dark energy (DE) and nonrelativistic (NR) matter densities are observationally determined to be comparable at the present time, in spite of their greatly different evolution histories. This `cosmic…
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…
The old cosmological constant problem is to understand why the vacuum energy is so small; the new problem is to understand why it is comparable to the present mass density. Several approaches to these problems are reviewed. Quintessence…
Although quintessence cosmologies seem to explain the amount of cosmological constant today, the required conditions are severe. For example, an extremely slowly varying and light scalar field that rolls toward the vanishing vacuum energy…
It is argued that the observed vacuum energy density and the small values of the neutrino masses could be due to anthropic selection effects. Until now, these two quantities have been treated separately from each other and, in particular,…
We examine cyclic phantom models for the universe, in which the universe is dominated sequentially by radiation, matter, and a phantom dark energy field, followed by a standard inflationary phase. Since this cycle repeats endlessly, the…
A framework is suggested in which the energy integrals of the Friedmann cosmology are identified as genuine time-independent physical characteristics for both vacuum and non-vacuum forms of cosmic energy. The integrals are found to be…
The condensed matter examples, in which the effective gravity appears in the low-energy corner as one of the collective modes of quantum vacuum, provide a possible answer to the question, why the vacuum energy is so small. This answer comes…
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…
Dark energy models which alter the relative scaling behavior of dark energy and matter could provide a natural solution to the cosmic coincidence problem - why the densities of dark energy and dark matter are comparable today. A generalized…
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…
The observational fact that the present values of the densities of dark energy and dark matter are of the same order of magnitude, $\rho_{de0}/\rho_{dm0} \sim \mathcal{O}(1)$, seems to indicate that we are currently living in a very special…
The mysterious `dark energy' needed to explain the current observations, poses a serious confrontation between fundamental physics and cosmology. The present crisis may be an outcome of the (so far untested) prediction of the general theory…
Recent cosmological observations strongly suggest that the universe is dominated by an unknown form of energy with negative pressure. Why is this dark energy density of order the critical density today? We propose that the dark energy has…
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.…