- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review D

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Quantum-mechanical mechanism for reducing the cosmological constant

Nemanja Kaloper1,* and Alexander Westphal2,†

  • 1QMAP, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA
  • 2Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestrasse 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany

  • *kaloper@physics.ucdavis.edu
  • †alexander.westphal@desy.de
PDF

Phys. Rev. D 106, L101701 – Published 28 November, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.106.L101701

Abstract

We exhibit a mechanism that dynamically adjusts the cosmological constant toward 0+. The adjustment is quantum mechanical, discharging the cosmological constant in random discrete steps. It renders de Sitter space unstable and triggers its decay toward Minkowski. Since the instability dynamically stops at Λ=0, the evolution favors the terminal Minkowski space without a need for anthropics. The mechanism works for any quantum field theory coupled to gravity.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (40)

  1. N. Kaloper, Phys. Rev. D 106, 065009 (2022).
  2. N. Kaloper, Phys. Rev. D 106, 044023 (2022).
  3. D. Hilbert, Gott. Nachr. 27, 395 (1915).
  4. A. Einstein, Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Phys. Math. Kl. 1915, 844 (1915).
  5. A. Einstein, Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Phys. Math. Kl. 1919, 349 (1919).
  6. J. L. Anderson and D. Finkelstein, Am. J. Phys. 39, 901 (1971).
  7. A. Aurilia, H. Nicolai, and P. K. Townsend, Nucl. Phys. B176, 509 (1980).
  8. M. J. Duff and P. van Nieuwenhuizen, Phys. Lett. 94B, 179 (1980).
  9. W. Buchmuller and N. Dragon, Phys. Lett. B 207, 292 (1988).
  10. W. Buchmuller and N. Dragon, Phys. Lett. B 223, 313 (1989).
  11. M. Henneaux and C. Teitelboim, Phys. Lett. B 222, 195 (1989).
  12. Y. J. Ng and H. van Dam, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 32, 1337 (1991).
  13. W. Buchmuller and N. Dragon, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2022) 167.
  14. J. D. Brown and C. Teitelboim, Phys. Lett. B 195, 177 (1987).
  15. J. D. Brown and C. Teitelboim, Nucl. Phys. B297, 787 (1988).
  16. A. Linde, Rep. Prog. Phys. 80, 022001 (2017).
  17. T. Banks, M. Dine, and N. Seiberg, Phys. Lett. B 273, 105 (1991).
  18. S. R. Coleman and F. De Luccia, Phys. Rev. D 21, 3305 (1980).
  19. Y. B. Zeldovich, JETP Lett. 6, 316 (1967); Sov. Phys. Usp. 11, 381 (1968).
  20. F. Wilczek, Phys. Rep. 104, 143 (1984).
  21. S. Weinberg, Rev. Mod. Phys. 61, 1 (1989).
  22. L. F. Abbott, Phys. Lett. 150B, 427 (1985).
  23. R. Bousso and J. Polchinski, J. High Energy Phys. 06 (2000) 006.
  24. W. Israel, Nuovo Cimento B 44S10, 1 (1966); 48, 463(E) (1967).
  25. G. W. Gibbons and S. W. Hawking, Phys. Rev. D 15, 2752 (1977).
  26. G. W. Gibbons and S. W. Hawking, Phys. Rev. D 15, 2738 (1977).
  27. M. J. Duff, Phys. Lett. B 226, 36 (1989).
  28. M. J. Duncan and L. G. Jensen, Nucl. Phys. B336, 100 (1990).
  29. S. R. Coleman, Phys. Rev. D 15, 2929 (1977); 16, 1248(E) (1977).
  30. C. G. Callan Jr. and S. R. Coleman, Phys. Rev. D 16, 1762 (1977).
  31. F. Englert, E. Gunzig, C. Truffin, and P. Windey, Phys. Lett. 57B, 73 (1975).
  32. N. Arkani-Hamed, S. Dimopoulos, N. Kaloper, and R. Sundrum, Phys. Lett. B 480, 193 (2000).
  33. J. L. Feng, J. March-Russell, S. Sethi, and F. Wilczek, Nucl. Phys. B602, 307 (2001).
  34. I. Niven, Numbers: Rational and Irrational, New Mathematical Library (Mathematical Association of America, Washington, DC, 1961).
  35. A. D. Linde, J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 01 (2007) 022.
  36. S. W. Hawking, The cosmological constant and the weak anthropic principle, Print-82-0177 (CAMBRIDGE), Contribution to Nuffield Workshop on Quantum Structure of Space and Time (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1982), pp. 423–432.
  37. E. Baum, Phys. Lett. 133B, 185 (1983).
  38. S. W. Hawking, Phys. Lett. 134B, 403 (1984).
  39. J. Garriga and A. Vilenkin, Phys. Rev. D 64, 023517 (2001).
  40. S. M. Carroll and J. Chen, arXiv:hep-th/0410270.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 106, L101701– Published 28 November, 2022
  • Received 22 October 2022
  • Accepted 15 November 2022
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation