Related papers: Cosmological constant and vacuum energy
Building upon our recently established correspondence between quantum cosmology and the hydrogen atom [1], we investigate the specific sector of a negative cosmological constant ($\Lambda < 0$) in a flat FLRW universe with dust. While the…
Loop Quantum Cosmology strongly modifies the high-energy dynamics of Friedman-Robertson-Walker models and removes the big-bang singularity. We investigate how LQC corrections affect the stability properties of the Einstein static universe.…
In hep-th/0506040 we discussed a classically constrained model of gravity. This theory contains known solutions of General Relativity (GR), and admits solutions that are absent in GR. Here we study cosmological implications of some of these…
When the vacuum fluctuation pressure is calculated directly from fundamental principles of quantum field theory, in the same manner as vacuum fluctuation energy density is commonly calculated, one finds it is not equal to the negative of…
It is suggested that the exact value of the cosmological constant could be derived from first principles, based on entanglement of the Standard Model field vacuum with emergent holographic quantum geometry. For the observed value of the…
We consider the standard model with local scale invariance. The theory shows exact scale invariance of dimensionally regulated action. We show that massless gauge fields, which may be abelian or non-abelian, lead to vanishing contribution…
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…
I argue that a solution to the cosmological constant problem is to assume that the expectation value of the quantum vacuum stress-energy tensor is proportional to the metric tensor with a negative energy density and positive pressure. This…
In this article the cosmological constant problems, as well as the astronomical evidence for a cosmologically significant homogeneous exotic energy density with negative pressure (quintessence), are reviewed for a broad audience of…
In the saddle point approximation, the Euclidean path integral for quantum gravity closely resembles a thermodynamic partition function, with the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ playing the role of temperature and the ``density of…
The belief still persists, at least for an important part of the community, that in general relativity the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ must remain immaculate. However, Bianchi identities show that $\Lambda$ could acquire local…
The quantum gravitational contribution to the renormalization group behavior of the electric charge in Einstein-Maxwell theory with a cosmological constant is considered. Quantum gravity is shown to lead to a contribution to the running…
Hawking proposed that the cosmological constant is probably zero in quantum cosmology. Duff claimed that Hawking's proof is invalidated. Using the right configuration for the wave function of the universe, we provide a complete proof.
This essay elucidates recent achievements of the "nongravitating vacuum energy" (NGVE) theory" which has the feature that a shift of the Lagrangian density by a constant does not affect dynamics. In the first order formalism, a constraint…
Physicists have speculated about the properties of the quantum vacuum for at least 85 years; however, only recently have they understood the quantum vacuum sufficiently well to begin making testable predictions. Specifically, using…
The Cosmological Constant Lambda, a concept introduced by Einstein in 1917, has been with us ever since in different variants and incarnations, including the broader concept of Dark Energy. Current observations are consistent with a value…
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,…
Flat cosmological models with a cosmological constant on the order of the Einstein-de Sitter critical density are enigmatic in the sense that there does not appear to be any natural explanation for why there should be a cosmological…
This contribution reviews recent work on a new approach to the cosmological constant problem, which starts from the macroscopic behavior of a conserved relativistic microscopic variable q. First, the statics of the vacuum energy density is…
It is argued that the zero-point energies of free quantum fields diverge at most quadratically and not quartically, as is generally believed. This is a consequence of the relativistic invariance which requires that the energy density of the…