Related papers: Why Does Gravity Ignore the Vacuum Energy?
The equations of motion describing all physical systems, except gravity, remain invariant if a constant is added to the Lagrangian. In the conventional approach, gravitational theories break this symmetry exhibited by all other physical…
The cosmological constant is the most economical candidate for dark energy. No other approach really alleviates the difficulties faced by the cosmological constant because, in all other attempts to model the dark energy, one still has to…
We develop the principle of nongravitating vacuum energy, which is implemented by changing the measure of integration from $\sqrt{-g}d^{D}x$ to an integration in an internal space of $D$ scalar fields $\phi_{a}$. As a consequence of such a…
The fact that the equations of motion for matter remain invariant when a constant is added to the Lagrangian suggests postulating that the field equations of gravity should also respect this symmetry. This principle implies that: (1) the…
A new approach to the cosmological constant problem is proposed by modifying Einstein's theory of general relativity, using instead a scalar-tensor theory of gravitation. This theory of gravity crucially incorporates the concept of quantum…
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…
Starting with a field theoretic approach in Minkowski space, the gravitational energy momentum tensor is derived from the Einstein equations in a straightforward manner. This allows to present them as {\it acceleration tensor} = const.…
In applications of Einstein gravity one replaces the quantum-mechanical energy-momentum tensor of sources such as the degenerate electrons in a white dwarf or the black-body photons in the microwave background by c-number matrix elements.…
Motivated by some recent speculative attempts to model the dark energy, scalar fields with negative kinetic energy coupled to gravity without a cosmological constant are considered. It is shown that in the presence of an ordinary fluid, any…
I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1 briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises the…
We study a noncommutative deformation of general relativity where the gravitational field is described by a matrix-valued symmetric two-tensor field. The equations of motion are derived in the framework of this new theory by varying a…
I clarify the differences between various approaches in the literature which attempt to link gravity and thermodynamics. I then describe a new perspective based on the following features: (1) As in the case of any other matter field, the…
The cosmological constant is not an absolute constant. The gravitating part of the vacuum energy is adjusted to the energy density of matter and to other types of the perturbations of the vacuum. We discuss how the vacuum energy responds…
I describe an approach which relates classical gravity to the quantum microstructure of spacetime. In this approach, the field equations arise from maximizing the density of states of the matter plus geometry. The former is identified using…
A covariant Lagrangian formulation of a solution to the cosmological constant problem, based on vizualising the fluctuations of the vacuum energy as a non-equilibrium process with stochastic behaviour, is presented. The variational…
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…
A general paradigm for describing classical (and semiclassical) gravity is presented. This approach brings to the centre-stage a holographic relationship between the bulk and surface terms in a general class of action functionals and…
We present a solution to the cosmological constant, the zero-point energy, and the quantum gravity problems within a single comprehensive framework. We show that in quantum theories of gravity in which the zero-point energy density of the…
Recently, a new alternative vector theory of gravity has been proposed which assumes that universe has fixed background Euclidean geometry and gravity is a vector field that alters this geometry [Phys. Scr. 92, 125001 (2017)]. It has been…
An alternative approach to Einstein's theory of General Relativity (GR) is reviewed, which is motivated by a range of serious theoretical issues inflicting the theory, such as the cosmological constant problem, presence of non-Machian…