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Solar System tests give nowadays constraints on the estimated value of the cosmological constant, which can be accurately derived from different experiments regarding gravitational redshift, light deflection, gravitational time-delay and…
A nonlocal form of the effective gravitational action could cure the unboundedness of euclidean gravity with Einstein action. On sub-horizon length scales the modified gravitational field equations seem compatible with all present tests of…
Recently Gambini and Pullin proposed a new consistent discrete approach to quantum gravity and applied it to cosmological models. One remarkable result of this approach is that the cosmological singularity can be avoided in a general…
In this thesis the cosmological constant is investigated from two points of view. First, we study the influence of a time-dependent cosmological constant on the late-time expansion of the universe. Thereby, we consider several combinations…
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…
This article aims at discussing the cosmological constant problem at a pedagogical but fully technical level. We review how the vacuum energy can be regularized in flat and curved space-time and how it can be understood in terms of Feynman…
The cosmological constant presents one of the most fascinating and confounding problems in physics. A straightforward, seemingly robust prediction of quantum mechanics and general relativity is that the vacuum energy gravitates. Therefore,…
The method of four-dimensional Causal Dynamical Triangulations provides a background-independent definition of the sum over geometries in quantum gravity, in the presence of a positive cosmological constant. We present the evidence…
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…
In this essay, we present a new understanding of the cosmological constant problem, built upon the realization that the vacuum energy density can be expressed in terms of a phase space volume. We introduce a UV-IR regularization which…
Within the holographic cosmology paradigm, specifically the model of McFadden and Skenderis, but more generally than that, the cosmological constant is found to naturally flow from a large value, to a small value, which can even be as low…
This work is a continuation of studies presented in the papers arXiv:0911.5597, arXiv:1003.4523. In the work it is demonstrated that with the use of one and the same parameter deformation may be described for several cases of the General…
We consider a two-dimensional model of gravity with the cosmological constant as a dynamical variable. The effective cosmological constant is derived when the universe has no initial boundary. It turns out to be extremely small if the…
We develop the canonical formalism for a system of $N$ bodies in lineal gravity and obtain exact solutions to the equations of motion for N=2. The determining equation of the Hamiltonian is derived in the form of a transcendental equation,…
One hope to solve the cosmological constant problem is to identify a symmetry principle, based on which the cosmological constant can be reduced either to zero, or to a tiny value. Here, we note that requiring that the vacuum state is…
A key challenge for many quantum gravity approaches is to construct states that describe smooth geometries on large scales. Here we define a family of $(2+1)$-dimensional quantum gravity states which arise from curvature excitations…
This chapter provides an introduction to Unimodular Gravity both at the classical and quantum level, discussing the r\^ole it might play in the partial solution of the Cosmological Constant problem. The main objective of this work is to…
We present an unconventional approach for addressing the old cosmological constant (CC) problem in a class of F(R,G) models of modified gravity. For a CC of arbitrary size and sign the corresponding cosmological evolution follows an…
The cosmological constant problem is studied in a two component cosmological model. The universe contains a cosmological constant of an arbitrary size and sign and an additional component with an inhomogeneous equation of state. It is shown…
The harmonic oscillator in pseudo euclidean space is studied. A straightforward procedure reveals that although such a system may have negative energy, it is stable. In the quantized theory the vacuum state has to be suitably defined and…