Stress-Energy Connection and Cosmological Constant Problem

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel geometric formalism where vacuum energy influences the gravitational constant rather than acting as a cosmological constant, offering a new perspective on the cosmological constant problem.

Contribution

It introduces a modified spacetime connection that channels vacuum energy into the gravitational constant, providing a new approach to the cosmological constant problem.

Findings

Vacuum energy does not act as a cosmological constant in this formalism.

The formalism modifies the gravitational field equations with non-local, higher-dimensional terms.

Quantum effects may still restore the cosmological constant problem.

Abstract

We study gravitational properties of vacuum energy by erecting a geometry on the stress-energy tensor of vacuum, matter and radiation. Postulating that the gravitational effects of matter and radiation can be formulated by an appropriate modification of the spacetime connection, we obtain varied geometro-dynamical equations which properly comprise the usual gravitational field equations with, however, Planck-suppressed, non-local, higher-dimensional additional terms. The prime novelty brought about by the formalism is that, the vacuum energy does act not as the cosmological constant but as the source of the gravitational constant. The formalism thus deafens the cosmological constant problem by channeling vacuum energy to gravitational constant. Nevertheless, quantum gravitational effects, if any, restore the problem via the graviton and graviton-matter loops, and the mechanism proposed here falls short of taming such contributions to cosmological constant.