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Register a new userWhy the Cosmological Constant is so Small ? A String Theory Perspective
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S.-H. Henry Tye
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With no free parameter (except the string scale $M_S$), dynamical flux compactification in Type IIB string theory determines both the cosmological constant (vacuum energy density) $Lambda$ and the Planck mass $M_P$ in terms of $M_S$, thus yielding their relation. Following elementary probability theory, we find that a good fraction of the meta-stable de Sitter vacua in the cosmic string theory landscape tend to have an exponentially small cosmological constant $Lambda$ compared to either the string scale $M_S$ or the Planck scale $M_P$, i.e., $Lambda ll M_S^4 ll M_P^4$. Here we illustrate the basic stringy ideas with a simple scalar field $phi^3$ (or $phi^4$) model coupled with fluxes to show how this may happen and how the usual radiative instability problem is bypassed (since there are no parameters to be fine-tuned). These low lying semi-classical de Sitter vacua tend to be accompanied by light scalar bosons/axions, so the Higgs boson mass hierarchy problem may be ameliorated as well.
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Within conventional big bang cosmology, it has proven to be very difficult to understand why todays cosmological constant is so small. In this paper, we show that a cyclic model of the universe can naturally incorporate a dynamical mechanism that automatically relaxes the value of the cosmological constant, taking account of contributions to the vacuum density at all energy scales. Because the relaxation time grows exponentially as the vacuum density decreases, nearly every volume of space spends an overwhelming majority of the time at the stage when the cosmological constant is small and positive, as observed today.
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