Anthropic Bound on the Cosmological Constant

1987/11/30 by Steven Weinberg · 19 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena

paper · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.59.2607

openalex publication_date 1987/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/16

Abstract

In recent cosmological models, there is an "anthropic" upper bound on the cosmological constant \ensuremathΛ. It is argued here that in universes that do not recollapse, the only such bound on \ensuremathΛ is that it should not be so large as to prevent the formation of gravitationally bound states. It turns out that the bound is quite large. A cosmological constant that is within 1 or 2 orders of magnitude of its upper bound would help with the missing-mass and age problems, but may be ruled out by galaxy number counts. If so, we may conclude that anthropic considerations do not explain the smallness of the cosmological constant.

Cited by

• Why the universe is just so
• Is “the Theory of Everything” Merely the Ultimate Ensemble Theory?
• Anthropic Reasoning
• A Critical Look at Inflationary Cosmology
• The cosmological constant and dark energy
• PhD Thesis: String theory in the early universe
• The return of a static universe and the end of cosmology
• Hadronic production and decays of charginos and neutralinos in split supersymmetry
• Inflationary paradigm in trouble after Planck2013
• What does inflation really predict?
• Minimal grand unification model in an anthropic landscape
• Cosmological constraints from the SDSS luminous red galaxies
• Inflationary paradigm after Planck 2013
• Towards inflation in string theory
• The Cosmological Constant
• Proton stability in grand unified theories, in strings and in branes
• Dark energy and the nature of the graviton
• Anthropic principle [wikipedia]
• Cosmological constant [wikipedia]