Related papers: Cosmological Constant and Zeta-Function
We use zeta function techniques to give a finite definition for the Casimir energy of an arbitrary ultrastatic spacetime with or without boundaries. We find that the Casimir energy is intimately related to, but not identical to, the…
This paper deals with the cancellation mechanism, which identifies the energy density of space-time expansion in an empty universe with the zero-point energy density and avoids the scale discrepancy with the observed energy density…
I try to revive, and possibly reconcile, a debate started a few years ago, about the relative roles of a bare cosmological constant and of a vacuum energy, by taking the attitude to try to get the most from the physics now available as…
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…
The physical Hamiltonian of a gravity-matter system depends on the choice of time, with the vacuum naturally identified as its ground state. We study the expanding universe with scalar field in the volume time gauge. We show that the vacuum…
We discuss how to extract information about the cosmological constant from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, considered as an eigenvalue of a Sturm-Liouville problem. The equation is approximated to one loop with the help of a variational…
We analyze the cosmological solutions to the recently proposed nonlocal quantum effective action for gravity with a cosmological term. We show that the vacuum energy decays with a slow-roll parameter proportional to the anomalous…
We compare the path integral for transition functions in unimodular gravity and in general relativity. In unimodular gravity the cosmological constant is a property of states that are specified at the boundaries whereas in general…
We study the effective potential in renormalizable quantum gravity with a single dimensionless conformal coupling without a Landau pole. In order to describe a background-free dynamics at the Planck scale and beyond, the conformal-factor…
Two very different methods are used to estimate the magnitude of the effective cosmological constant / dark energy (for the present cosmic epoch). Their results agree with each other and are in agreement with observations. One method makes…
Observables in the quantum field theories of $(D-1)$-form fields, $\ca$, on $D$-dimensional, compact and orientable manifolds, $M$, are computed. Computations of the vacuum value of $T_{ab}$ find it to be the metric times a function of the…
It is well-known that quantum field theory (QFT) induces a huge value of the cosmological constant, $\Lambda$, which is outrageously inconsistent with cosmological observations. We review here some aspects of this fundamental theoretical…
The energy density of the vacuum, Lambda, is at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller than several known contributions to it. Approaches to this problem are tightly constrained by data ranging from elementary observations to precision…
The general thermodynamic analysis of the quantum vacuum, which is based on our knowledge of the vacua in condensed-matter systems, is consistent with the Einstein earlier view on the cosmological constant. In the equilibrium Universes the…
Recently a scale invariant theory of gravity was constructed by imposing a conformal symmetry on general relativity. The imposition of this symmetry changed the configuration space from superspace - the space of all Riemannian 3-metrics…
The source of the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe is still unknown. We examine some consequences of the possible scale invariance of the empty space at large scales. The central hypothesis of this work is that, at macroscopic…
I describe an approach which connects classical gravity with the quantum microstructure of spacetime. The field equations arise from maximizing the density of states of matter plus geometry. The former is identified using the thermodynamics…
I briefly review the cosmological constant problem and the issue of dark energy (or quintessence). Within the framework of quantum field theory, the vacuum expectation value of the energy momentum tensor formally diverges as $k^4$. A cutoff…
We study a spatial-temporal structure of quantum fluctuations in the stress-energy tensor of zero-point modes for a scalar field in order to formulate a covariant model. The model describes an invariant vacuum contribution to the…
This Letter proposes a solution of the Vacuum Energy and the Cosmological Constant (CC) paradox based on the Zel'dovich's ansatz, which states that the observable contribution to the vacuum energy density is given by the gravitational…