Dynamic cancellation of a cosmological constant and approach to the Minkowski vacuum

Abstract

The \(q\)-theory approach to the cosmological constant problem is reconsidered. The new observation is that the effective classical \(q\)-theory gets modified due to the backreaction of quantum-mechanical particle production by spacetime curvature. Furthermore, a Planck-scale cosmological constant is added to the energy density \(\epsilon(q)\) of the action, in order to represent the effects from zero-point energies and phase transitions. The resulting dynamical equations of a spatially-flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe are then found to give a steady approach to the Minkowski vacuum, with attractor behavior for a finite domain of initial boundary conditions on the fields. The approach to the Minkowski vacuum is slow and gives rise to an inflation-type increase of the particle horizon.