相关论文: The Cosmological Constant and Volume-Preserving Di…
We consider general relativity with a cosmological constant as a perturbative expansion around a completely solvable diffeomorphism invariant field theory. This theory is the $\Lambda\to\infty$ limit of general relativity. This allows an…
The geometrical structure of a real four-dimensional space-time has been extended via the Conservation group with basic field variable being the orthonormal tetrad. Field equations were obtained from a variational principle which is…
The existence of point symmetries in the cosmological field equations of generalized vacuum scalar--tensor theories is considered within the context of the spatially homogeneous cosmologies. It is found that such symmetries only occur in…
We consider an effective field theory description of gravity coupled to a scalar field with volume-preserving diffeomorphism and Weyl invariances. The smallness of the cosmological constant is achieved when the potential of the scalar is…
We discuss the issue of the cosmological constant in non-commutative non-supersymmetric gauge theories. In particular, in orbifold field theories non-commutativity acts as a UV cut-off. We suggest that in these theories quantum corrections…
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…
A covariant spin-foam formulation of quantum gravity has been recently developed, characterized by a kinematics which appears to match well the one of canonical loop quantum gravity. In particular, the geometrical observable giving the area…
A model of topological field theory is presented in which the vacuum coupling constants are topological invariants of the four-dimensional spacetime. Thus the coupling constants are theoretically computable, and they indicate the…
It will be argued here that the cosmological constant problem exists because of the way the vacuum is defined in quantum field theory. It has been known for some time that for QFT to be gauge invariant certain terms--such as part of the…
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…
The path-integral formulation of quantum cosmology with a massless scalar field as a sum-over-histories of volume transitions is discussed, with particular but non-exclusive reference to loop quantum cosmology. Exploiting the analogy with…
In a recent article we showed that the analog of the cosmological constant in two spacetime dimensions for a wide variety of integrable quantum field theories has the form $\rho_{\rm vac} = - m^2 /2 \mathfrak{g} $ where $m$ is a physical…
We propose a proper definition of the vacuum expectation value of the stress energy tensor $\langle 0 | T_{\mu\nu} |0 \rangle$ for integrable quantum field theories in two spacetime dimensions, which is the analog of the cosmological…
We discuss the cosmological phenomenology of biscalar-tensor models displaying a maximally symmetric Einstein-frame kinetic sector and constructed on the basis of scale symmetry and volume-preserving diffeomorphisms. These theories contain…
New recent results in supersymmetric gauge theories based on holomorphy and symmetry considerations are extended to the case where the gauge coupling constant is given by the real part of a chiral superfield. We assume here that its…
We consider a dynamical approach to the cosmological constant. There is a scalar field with a potential whose minimum occurs at a generic, but negative, value for the vacuum energy, and it has a non-standard kinetic term whose coefficient…
A central aspect of the cosmological constant problem is to understand why vacuum energy does not gravitate. In order to account for this observation, while allowing for nontrivial dynamics of the quantum vacuum, we motivate a novel…
The paper contains successive description of the strong-coupling perturbation theory. Formal realization of the idea is based on observation that the path-integrals measure for absorption part of amplitudes $\R$ is Diracian ($\d$-like). New…
Gauge-invariant observables for quantum gravity are described, with explicit constructions given primarily to leading order in Newton's constant, analogous to and extending constructions first given by Dirac in quantum electrodynamics.…
The cosmological constant problem is examined under the assumption that the extrinsic curvature of the space-time contributes to the vacuum. A compensation mechanism based on a variable cosmological term is proposed. Under a suitable…