Cosmological Constant: A Lesson from Bose-Einstein Condensates

Year: 2012

Authors: Finazzi S., Liberati S., Sindoni L.

Autors Affiliation: SISSA, I-34136 Trieste, Italy; Ist Nazl Fis Nucl, Sez Trieste, Milan, Italy; INO-CNR BEC Center, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Trento, 38123 Povo-Trento, via Sommarive 14, Italy; Albert Einstein Inst, D-14476 Golm, Germany.

Abstract: The cosmological constant is one of the most pressing problems in modern physics. We address this issue from an emergent gravity standpoint, by using an analogue gravity model. Indeed, the dynamics of the emergent metric in a Bose-Einstein condensate can be described by a Poisson-like equation with a vacuum source term reminiscent of a cosmological constant. The direct computation of this term shows that in emergent gravity scenarios this constant may be naturally much smaller than the naive ground-state energy of the emergent effective field theory. This suggests that a proper computation of the cosmological constant would require a detailed understanding about how Einstein equations emerge from the full microscopic quantum theory. In this light, the cosmological constant appears as a decisive test bench for any quantum or emergent gravity scenario.

Journal/Review: PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS

Volume: 108 (6)      Pages from: 71101-1  to: 71101-5

KeyWords: Quantum-gravity
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.071101

ImpactFactor: 7.943
Citations: 33
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