A small non-vanishing cosmological constant from vacuum energy: physically and observationally desirable

Abstract

Increasing improvements in the independent determinations of the Hubble constant and the age of the universe now seem to indicate that we need a small non-vanishing cosmological constant to make the two independent observations consistent with each other. The cosmological constant can be physically interpreted as due to the vacuum energy of quantized fields. To make the cosmological observations consistent with each other we would need a vacuum energy density, ${\rho }_v\sim (10^{-3}eV{)}^4$ today ( in the cosmological units $\hslash =c=k=1$ ). It is argued in this article that such a vacuum energy density is natural in the context of phase transitions linked to massive neutrinos. In fact, the neutrino masses required to provide the right vacuum energy scale to remove the age Vs Hubble constant discrepancy are consistent with those required to solve the solar neutrino problem by the MSW mechanism.

25 pages, latex, revised version to appear in Phys. Rev. D52 (1995): contains an expanded and clarified discussion of the particle physics model and connected issues

References in corpus (2)

• Threshold Effects in SO(10) Grandunified Models and Solar Neutrino Puzzle
• Quasar Production:Topological Defect Formation due to a Phase Transition linked with Massive Neutrinos

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Dark Energy from Mass Varying Neutrinos
• Cosmological Evolution of Interacting Dark Energy Models with Mass Varying Neutrinos
• Supersymmetric Theories of Neutrino Dark Energy
• Supercooling and phase coexistence in cosmological phase transitions
• Exotic Low Density Fermion States in the Two Measures Field Theory: Neutrino Dark Energy
• Probing Neutrino Dark Energy with Extremely High-Energy Cosmic Neutrinos
• Proposal for a Constant Cosmological Constant
• Neutrino generated dynamical dark energy with no dark energy field
• Dark Energy Gravitational Wave Observations and Ice Age Periodicity
• Ehrenfest theorems and charge antiscreening in Abelian projected gauge theories
• Gravitational Wave Formation from the Collapse of Dark Energy Field Configurations
• Cosmological constant and the fate of the DDM theory
• Dark Energy Black Holes with Intermediate Masses at High Redshifts: an earlier generation of Quasars and observations