Symmetries and the cosmological constant puzzle
arXiv:0704.1436 · doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2007.06.040
Abstract
We outline the evaluation of the cosmological constant in the framework of the standard field-theoretical treatment of vacuum energy and discuss the relation between the vacuum energy problem and the gauge-group spontaneous symmetry breaking. We suggest possible extensions of the 't Hooft-Nobbenhuis symmetry, in particular, its complexification till duality symmetry and discuss the compatible implementation on gravity. We propose to use the discrete time-reflection transform to formulate a framework in which one can eliminate the huge contributions of vacuum energy into the effective cosmological constant and suggest that the breaking of time--reflection symmetry could be responsible for a small observable value of this constant.
11 pages, more relevant refs, refining cutoff definition of cosmological constant + eq.for regularized pressure added