Related papers: Scales Set by the Cosmological Constant
Using the scalar and tensor virial equations, the Lane-Emden equation expressing the hydrostatic equilibrium and small oscillations around the equilibrium, we show how the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ affects various astrophysical…
We observe that the standard homogeneous cosmologies, those of Minkowski, de Sitter, and anti-de Sitter, which form the matrix for the Robertson--Walker scale factor, live naturally as isolated points inside a larger family of conformally…
Scaling relations for the mass, angular momentum and other properties of a wide range of self-similar structures in the universe are seen to have universal features. As a consequence of the ideas elaborated in earlier papers these relations…
We propose a time-varying cosmological constant with a fixed equation of state, which evolves mainly through its interaction with the background during most of the long history of the universe. However, such interaction does not exist in…
A set of scaling laws, based on the stochastic motions of the granular components of astronomical systems, is applied to a cosmological model with a positive cosmological constant. It follows that the mass of the dominant particle in the…
At the level of the Planck scale, the spacetime metric has to be considered a quantum variable. Conformal quantum fluctuations of the metric tensor are studied here. They lead to an extra term in the Einstein equations which can be…
Most of the literature on general relativity over the last century assumes that the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is zero. However, by now independent observations have led to a consensus that the dynamics of the universe is best…
The (re)introduction of $\Lambda$ into cosmology has spurred debates that touch on central questions in philosophy of science, as well as the foundations of general relativity and particle physics. We provide a systematic assessment of the…
Recently, a new framework for describing the multiverse has been proposed which is based on the principles of quantum mechanics. The framework allows for well-defined predictions, both regarding global properties of the universe and…
Light scalar fields very naturally appear in modern cosmological models, affecting such parameters of Standard Model as electromagnetic fine structure constant $\alpha$, dimensionless ratios of electron or quark mass to the QCD scale,…
We explore the possibility of a consistent cosmology based on the gauge-fixing independent running of the gravitational and cosmological constants ($G$ and $\Lambda$) in the framework of effective quantum gravity. In particular, their…
We present a new solution to the cosmological constant (CC) and coincidence problems in which the observed value of the CC, $\Lambda$, is linked to other observable properties of the universe. This is achieved by promoting the CC from a…
Recent observations of Type 1a supernovae indicating an accelerating universe have once more drawn attention to the possible existence, at the present epoch, of a small positive Lambda-term (cosmological constant). In this paper we review…
We study the effect of a cosmological constant $\Lambda$ on the propagation and detection of gravitational waves. To this purpose we investigate the linearised Einstein's equations with terms up to linear order in $\Lambda$ in a de Sitter…
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…
From the principles of quantum cosmologies we can justify the reason for an inverse-square law for the cosmological constant with no conflict with observations. Although this general expression for $\Lambda$ is well known in the literature,…
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…
A diverse set of observations now compellingly suggest that Universe possesses a nonzero cosmological constant. In the context of quantum-field theory a cosmological constant corresponds to the energy density of the vacuum, and the wanted…
We consider different observational effects to test modified gravity approach involving the cosmological constant in the common description of the dark matter and the dark energy. We obtain upper limits for the cosmological constant by…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…