Dark energy due to quantum corrections to effective potential

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum corrections to the effective potential in inflationary models can naturally produce a small cosmological constant or dark energy, impacting early universe and current cosmological observations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quantum corrections can uplift the potential's minimum, providing a natural explanation for small dark energy values in inflationary and quintessence models.

Findings

Quantum corrections modify the effective potential's minimum.

Small cosmological constant can arise naturally from these corrections.

The mechanism applies to both inflationary and quintessence models.

Abstract

In this paper we calculate quantum corrections to the effective potential in different models of inflationary cosmology. We show that quantum corrections lead to a modification of the initial potential uplifting its value at the minimum, which can be interpreted as a cosmological constant/dark energy. We concentrate on the models of $\alpha$-attractors and show that one can naturally get small values of the cosmological constant. In the model of quintessence, the same mechanism modifies the value of dark energy at the present time.