Quantum exclusion of positive cosmological constant?

Dvali, Gia and Gomez, Cesar (2016): Quantum exclusion of positive cosmological constant? In: Annalen der Physik, Vol. 528, No. 1-2: pp. 68-73

Abstract

We show that a positive cosmological constant is incompatible with the quantum-corpuscular resolution of de Sitter metric in form of a coherent state. The reason is very general and is due to the quantum self-destruction of the coherent state as a result of the scattering of constituent graviton quanta. This process creates an irreversible quantum clock, which precludes eternal de Sitter. It also eliminates the possibility of Boltzmann brains and Poincare recurrences. This effect is expected to be part of any microscopic theory that takes into account the quantum corpuscular structure of the cosmological background. This observation puts the cosmological constant problem in a very different light, promoting it, from a naturalness problem, into a question of quantum consistency. We are learning that quantum gravity cannot tolerate exceedingly-classical sources.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 0003-3804
• Language: English