Fat Euclidean gravity with small cosmological constant

DOI10.1016/J.NUCLPHYSB.2004.05.011zbMATH Open1325.83013arXivhep-th/0310251OpenAlexW2092806389MaRDI QIDQ874092FDOQ874092

Raman Sundrum

Publication date: 4 April 2007

Published in: Nuclear Physics B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The cosmological constant problem is usually considered an inevitable feature of any effective theory capturing well-tested gravitational and matter physics, without regard to the details of short-distance gravitational couplings. In this paper, a subtle effective description avoiding the problem is presented in a first quantized language, consistent with experiments and the Equivalence Principle. First quantization allows a minimal domain of validity to be carved out by cutting on the proper length of particle worldlines. This is facilitated by working in (locally) Euclidean spacetime, although considerations of unitarity are still addressed by analytic continuation from Lorentzian spacetime. The new effective description demonstrates that the cosmological constant problem {it is} sensitive to short-distance details of gravity, which can be probed experimentally. ``Fat Gravity toy models are presented, illustrating how gravity might shut off at short but testable distances, in a generally covariant manner that suppresses the cosmological constant. This paper improves on previous work by allowing generalizations to massless matter, non-trivial spins, non-perturbative phenomena, and multiple (metastable) vacua.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0310251

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Gravitational interaction in quantum theory (81V17) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Relativistic cosmology (83F05)

Cites Work

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• The cosmological constant problem
• Statistical Field Theory
• Perturbative quantum field theory in the string-inspired formalism
• Worldline formalism in a gravitational background

Cited In (2)

• Lower Limit to the Scale of an Effective Quantum Theory of Gravitation
• CONSTRAINTS ON EMERGENT GRAVITY

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