Extension of unimodular gravity and the cosmological constant

Abstract

A new way is proposed to cancel the cosmological constant. The proposal involves the metric determinant acting as a type of self-adjusting $q$-field without need of a fine-tuned chemical potential. Since the determinant of the metric now plays a role in the physics, the allowed coordinate transformations are restricted to those with unit Jacobian. This approach to the cosmological constant problem is, therefore, similar to the unimodular-gravity approach of the previous literature. The resulting cosmology has been studied and the obtained results show the natural cancellation of an initial cosmological constant if quantum-dissipative effects are included.

30 pages, 12 figures, v6: published version

References in corpus (5)

• Self-tuning vacuum variable and cosmological constant
• Dynamic vacuum variable and equilibrium approach in cosmology
• Unimodular cosmology and the weight of energy
• Big bang as a topological quantum phase transition
• Q-field from a 4D-brane: Cosmological constant cancellation and Minkowski attractor

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Emergent gravity from the IIB matrix model and cancellation of a cosmological constant
• Dimensionless physics: Planck constant as an element of Minkowski metric
• Q-field from a 4D-brane: Cosmological constant cancellation and Minkowski attractor