Relating the cosmological constant and slow roll to conformal symmetry breaking

TL;DR

This paper proposes that a nearly conformally invariant theory with small explicit breaking terms can naturally explain the smallness of the cosmological constant and also facilitate slow roll inflation, linking symmetry breaking to cosmological observations.

Contribution

It introduces a framework where conformal symmetry breaking controls the cosmological constant and enables slow roll inflation, offering a unified approach to these cosmological issues.

Findings

Cosmological constant is zero without symmetry breaking.

Small symmetry breaking terms set the observed cosmological constant.

Symmetry breaking terms induce slow roll conditions for inflation.

Abstract

We show that a theory with conformal invariance, which is explicitly broken by small terms, provides a solution to the fine tuning problem of the cosmological constant. In the absence of the symmetry breaking terms, the cosmological constant is zero. Its value in the full theory is controlled by the symmetry breaking terms. The symmetry breaking terms also provide the slow roll conditions, which may be useful in constructing a model of inflation.