Electroweak pion-nucleon constant

The parity-violating pion-nucleon coupling constant for the neutral currents of electroweak interaction is calculated by the method of QCD sum rules. In doing this, operators up to dimension 5 are retained in the operator-product expansion for the correlation function in an external pion field. That the value obtained for the pion-nucleon coupling constant is comparatively small stems from a partial cancellation between the leading perturbative and condensate contributions. This constant is compared with experimental data and with the results of calculations performed by other authors.     

Duality and the cosmological constant

A dynamical theory is studied in which a scalar field ϕ in Einstein-Minkowski space is coupled to the four-velocityN _μ of a preferred inertial observer in that space. As a consistent requirement on this coupling we study a principle of duality invariance of the dynamical mass term of ϕ at some universal length in the small-distance regime. In the large-distance regime duality breaking can be introduced by giving a background value to ϕ and a background direction toN _μ. It is shown that, in an appropriate approximation, duality breaking can be related to the emergence of a characteristic phase in which the condensation of the ground state allows massive excitations with a characteristic scale of squared mass which agrees with the present observational bound for the cosmological constant.     

Dimensionality and the cosmological constant

In the Kaluza-Klein model with a cosmological constant Λ and a flux, the external spacetime of the created universe from aS ^s × S ^n−s seed instanton can be identified in quantum cosmology. One can also show that in the internal space theeffective cosmological constant is most probably zero.     

Inflation,phase transitions and the cosmological constant

General Relativity and Gravitation - A new symmetry for Newtonian Dynamics is analyzed, this corresponds to going to an accelerated frame, which introduces a constant gravitational field into the...     

Time-dependent cosmological constant

Within the framework of the gauge covariant theory of gravitation it is showed that a time-dependent cosmological constant arises quite naturally as a result of Weyl conformai symmetry broken by quantum effects.On leave of absence from Department de Física Matemática, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.     

The cosmological constant

The energy density of the vacuum, Λ, is at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller than several known contributions to it. Approaches to this problem are tightly constrained by data ranging from elementary observations to precision experiments. Absent overwhelming evidence to the contrary, dark energy can only be interpreted as vacuum energy, so the venerable assumption that Λ = 0 conflicts with observation. The possibility remains that Λ is fundamentally variable, though constant over large spacetime regions. This can explain the observed value, but only in a theory satisfying a number of restrictive kinematic and dynamical conditions. String theory offers a concrete realization through its landscape of metastable vacua.     

The superfluid vacuum state,time-varying cosmological constant,and nonsingular cosmological models

Some cosmological consequences of the superfluid vacuum state developed previously by the authors are discussed, particularly with regard to the initial stages of the universe. The transition temperature of the hadronic superfluid (superfluid during the hadron era) is estimated to be 10 ¹³ K, which is the same as the Hagedorn temperature, giving a physical basis of the thermodynamic bootstrap model.     

Quantum instabilities and the cosmological constant

Several recent studies have found that the stress-energy of quantum fields in de Sitter space will take the form of a growing effective cosmological constant (Λ) with sign opposite to that of the background spacetime. This leads, in self-consistent scheme, to the spontaneous decay of the effective value of Λ, and has been proposed as a possible solution to the “problem of the cosmological constant”. By modeling the back-reaction of the spacetime to the quantum-stress-energy, it is shown that it is unlikely that such quantum instabilities can lower the value of Λ by a large factor and yield a universe even remotely like our own.     

Surface tension and the cosmological constant

One of the few predictions from quantum gravity models is Sorkin's observation that the cosmological constant has quantum fluctuations originating in the fundamental discreteness of spacetime at the Planck scale. Here we present a compelling analogy between the cosmological constant of the Universe and the surface tension of fluid membranes. The discreteness of spacetime on the Planck scale translates into the discrete molecular structure of a fluid membrane. We propose an analog quantum gravity experiment which realizes Sorkin's idea in the laboratory. We also notice that the analogy sheds light on the cosmological constant problem, suggesting a mechanism for dynamically generating a vanishingly small cosmological constant. We emphasize the generality of Sorkin's idea and suggest that similar effects occur generically in quantum gravity models.     

Conformal fixed point,cosmological constant,and quintessence

We connect a possible solution for the "cosmological constant problem" to the existence of a (postulated) conformal fixed point in a fundamental theory. The resulting cosmology leads to quintessence, where the present acceleration of the expansion of the universe is linked to a crossover in the flow of coupling constants.     

Signature change, vacuum condensation and cosmological constant

We proposes an alternative model of duality symmetry, based on the previously obtained divergence theory, including an scalar field, an internal vector and a metric signature. At some small scale an effective scalar field equation has appeared whose potential acts like a Higgs one, where the metric signature plays the role of an order parameter. Non-vanishing Vacuum condensation of this Higgs field occurs once a signature change from Euclidean to Lorentzian is formed. The mass scale of Higgs field excitations around this vacuum may contribute, in the Lorentzian sector, to the cosmological constant, in agreement with observations.     

The cosmological constant revisited

I briefly review the observational evidence for a small cosmological constant at the present epoch. This evidence mainly comes from high redshift observations of Type 1a supernovae, which, when combined with CMB observations strongly support a flat Universe with Ω _m + Ω_A ⋍ 1. Theoretically a cosmological constant can arise from zero point vacuum fluctuations. In addition ultra-light scalar fields could also give rise to a Universe which is accelerating driven by a time dependent Λ-term induced by the scalar field potential. Finally a Λ dominated Universe also finds support from observations of galaxy clustering and the age of the Universe.     

Multiloop modular invariance and the cosmological constant

In any ten-dimensional string model with space-time fermions, the cosmological constant vanishes identically, provided that only the transverse degrees of freedom contribute to all loop orders. The proof relies on an elementary application of the theory of induced representations of the modular group.