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On the origin of the cosmological constant

2002/04/08 by Jun'ichi Yokoyama, Yokoyama, Jun'ichi
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.gr-qc/0204033

5 pages. To be published in the Proc. 11th JGRG ed. by K. Maeda et al

arxiv created 2002/04/08 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30

Abstract

Under the assumption that the cosmological constant vanishes in the true ground state with lowest possible energy density, we argue that the observed small but finite vacuum-like energy density can be explained if we consider a theory with two or more degenerate perturbative vacua, which are unstable due to quantum tunneling, and if we still live in one of such states. An example is given making use of the topological vacua in non-Abelian gauge theories.

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