2008/07/16 by Niayesh Afshordi, Afshordi, Niayesh · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0807.2639
5 pages, 1 figure, comments are welcome
arxiv created 2008/07/16 · openalex publication_date 2008/07/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Cosmological constant problem (in its various versions) is arguably the deepest gap in our understanding of theoretical physics, the solution to which may very likely require revisiting the Einstein theory of gravity. In this letter, I argue that the simplest consistent way to decouple gravity from the vacuum energy (and hence solve the problem) is through the introduction of an incompressible gravitational aether fluid. The theory then predicts that gravitational constant for radiation is 33% larger than that of non-relativistic matter, which is preferred by most cosmological observations (with the exception of light element abundances), but is not probed by current precision tests of gravity. I also show that slow-roll inflation can happen in this theory, with only minor modifications. Finally, interpreting gravitational aether as a thermodynamic description of gravity, I propose a finite-temperature correction to the equation of state of gravity, which would explain the present-day acceleration of the cosmic expansion as a consequence of the formation of stellar mass black holes.