The Cosmological Constant Problem and Kaluza-Klein Theory

TL;DR

This paper argues that the cosmological constant in general relativity arises from dimensional reduction of higher-dimensional theories like Kaluza-Klein, and proposes replacing it with variable fields determined by ND field equations.

Contribution

It extends previous work to show the cosmological constant is an artifact of dimensional reduction and introduces a new perspective with variable fields in ND field theory.

Findings

Cosmological constant is an artifact of 4D reduction from higher dimensions.

Vacuum energy should be represented by variable fields rather than a constant.

Higher-dimensional theories provide a natural framework for understanding vacuum energy.

Abstract

We present technical results which extend previous work and show that the cosmological constant of general relativity is an artefact of the reduction to 4D of 5D Kaluza-Klein theory (or 10D superstrings and 11D supergravity). We argue that the distinction between matter and vacuum is artificial in the context of ND field theory. The concept of a cosmological ``constant'' (which measures the energy density of the vacuum in 4D) should be replaced by that of a series of variable fields whose sum is determined by a solution of ND field equations in a well-defined manner.