Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy

We propose a very simple reformulation of general relativity, which completely sequesters from gravity all of the vacuum energy from a matter sector, including all loop corrections and renders all contributions from phase transitions automatically small. The idea is to make the dimensional parameter...

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Main Authors: Kaloper, Nemanja, Padilla, Antonio
Format: Article
Published: American Physical Society 2014
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35321/
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author Kaloper, Nemanja
Padilla, Antonio
author_facet Kaloper, Nemanja
Padilla, Antonio
author_sort Kaloper, Nemanja
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description We propose a very simple reformulation of general relativity, which completely sequesters from gravity all of the vacuum energy from a matter sector, including all loop corrections and renders all contributions from phase transitions automatically small. The idea is to make the dimensional parameters in the matter sector functionals of the 4-volume element of the Universe. For them to be nonzero, the Universe should be finite in spacetime. If this matter is the standard model of particle physics, our mechanism prevents any of its vacuum energy, classical or quantum, from sourcing the curvature of the Universe. The mechanism is consistent with the large hierarchy between the Planck scale, electroweak scale, and curvature scale, and early Universe cosmology, including inflation. Consequences of our proposal are that the vacuum curvature of an old and large universe is not zero, but very small, that w DE ≃−1 is a transient, and that the Universe will collapse in the future.
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spelling nottingham-353212020-05-04T16:45:18Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35321/ Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy Kaloper, Nemanja Padilla, Antonio We propose a very simple reformulation of general relativity, which completely sequesters from gravity all of the vacuum energy from a matter sector, including all loop corrections and renders all contributions from phase transitions automatically small. The idea is to make the dimensional parameters in the matter sector functionals of the 4-volume element of the Universe. For them to be nonzero, the Universe should be finite in spacetime. If this matter is the standard model of particle physics, our mechanism prevents any of its vacuum energy, classical or quantum, from sourcing the curvature of the Universe. The mechanism is consistent with the large hierarchy between the Planck scale, electroweak scale, and curvature scale, and early Universe cosmology, including inflation. Consequences of our proposal are that the vacuum curvature of an old and large universe is not zero, but very small, that w DE ≃−1 is a transient, and that the Universe will collapse in the future. American Physical Society 2014-03-06 Article PeerReviewed Kaloper, Nemanja and Padilla, Antonio (2014) Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy. Physical Review Letters, 112 (9). 091304. ISSN 1079-7114 http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.091304 doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.091304 doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.091304
spellingShingle Kaloper, Nemanja
Padilla, Antonio
Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy
title Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy
title_full Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy
title_fullStr Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy
title_full_unstemmed Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy
title_short Sequestering the standard model vacuum energy
title_sort sequestering the standard model vacuum energy
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35321/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35321/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35321/