English

Weighing the Vacuum Energy

High Energy Physics - Theory 2021-04-28 v3 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We discuss the weight of vacuum energy in various contexts. First, we compute the vacuum energy for flat spacetimes of the form T3×R\mathbb{T}^3 \times \mathbb{R}, where T3\mathbb{T}^3 stands for a general 3-torus. We discover a quite simple relationship between energy at radius RR and energy at radius ls2R\frac{l_s^2}{ R}. Then we consider quantum gravity effects in the vacuum energy of a scalar field in M3×S1\mathbb{M}_3 \times S^1 where M3\mathbb{M}_3 is a general curved spacetime, and the circle S1S^1 refers to a spacelike coordinate. We compute it for General Relativity and generic transverse {\em TDiff} theories. In the particular case of Unimodular Gravity vacuum energy does not gravitate.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2011.08231,
  title  = {Weighing the Vacuum Energy},
  author = {Enrique Alvarez and Jesus Anero and Raquel Santos-Garcia},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.08231},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

32 pages. Minor corrections

R2 v1 2026-06-23T20:17:46.236Z