A Dynamical Approach to the Cosmological Constant

Abstract

We consider a dynamical approach to the cosmological constant. There is a scalar field with a potential whose minimum occurs at a generic, but negative, value for the vacuum energy, and it has a non-standard kinetic term whose coefficient diverges at zero curvature as well as the standard kinetic term. Because of the divergent coefficient of the kinetic term, the lowest energy state is never achieved. Instead, the cosmological constant automatically stalls at or near zero. The merit of this model is that it is stable under radiative corrections and leads to stable dynamics, despite the singular kinetic term. The model is not complete, however, in that some reheating is required. Nonetheless, our approach can at the very least reduce fine-tuning by 60 orders of magnitude or provide a new mechanism for sampling possible cosmological constants and implementing the anthropic principle.

4 pages; discussion of stability under radiative corrections, more self-contained discussion about stable dynamics; final version to appear in PRL

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• The Cosmological Constant and Dark Energy
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• Perturbations in k-inflation
• Testable anthropic predictions for dark energy
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