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Author: search.filters.author.Padmanabhan, T.Subject: search.filters.subject.Cosmological constant

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    Cosmological constant - The weight of the vacuum
    (2011-07-06) Padmanabhan, T.
    Recent cosmological observations suggest the existence of a positive cosmological constant Λ with the magnitude Λ(G~/c3) ≈ 10−123. This review discusses several aspects of the cosmological constant both from the cosmological (sections 1–6) and field theoretical (sections 7–11) perspectives. After a brief introduction to the key issues related to cosmological constant and a historical overview, a summary of the kinematics and dynamics of the standard Friedmann model of the universe is provided. The observational evidence for cosmological constant, especially from the supernova results, and the constraints from the age of the universe, structure for- mation, Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) anisotropies and a few others are described in detail, followed by a discussion of the theoretical models (quintessence, tachyonic scalar field, ...) from different perspectives. The latter part of the review (sections 7–11) concentrates on more conceptual and fundamental aspects of the cosmological constant like some alternative interpretations of the cosmological constant, relaxation mechanisms to reduce the cosmological constant to the currently observed value, the geometrical structure of the de Sitter space- time, thermodynamics of the de Sitter universe and the role of string theory in the cosmological constant problem.
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    Casimir effect confronts cosmological constant
    (2006-04-02) Mahajan, Gaurang; Sarkar, Sudipta; Padmanabhan, T.
    It has been speculated that the zero-point energy of the vacuum, regularized due to the existence of a suitable ultraviolet cut-off scale, could be the source of the non-vanishing cosmological constant that is driving the present acceleration of the universe. We show that the presence of such a cut-off can significantly alter the results for the Casimir force between parallel conducting plates and even lead to repulsive Casimir force when the plate separation is smaller than the cut-off scale length. Using the current experimental data we rule out the possibility that the observed osmological constant arises from the zero-point energy which is made finite by a suitable cut-off. Any such cut-off which is consistent with the observed Casimir effect will lead to an energy density which is about 1012 times larger than the observed one, if gravity couples to these modes. The implications are discussed.