Revealing a trans-Planckian world solves the cosmological constant problem

The Planck scale is usually believed to be an unpassable wall. Putting a cutoff there and thinking of it as a quantized spacetime entity shows that. However, this is exactly the cause of many problems in quantum gravity. The cosmological constant problem also comes down to the problem of how to desc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inProgress of theoretical and experimental physics Vol. 2022; no. 10
Main Author Hamada, Ken-ji
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Oxford University Press 14.10.2022
Subjects
Approximation
Gravity
Quantum field theory
Spacetime
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Summary:The Planck scale is usually believed to be an unpassable wall. Putting a cutoff there and thinking of it as a quantized spacetime entity shows that. However, this is exactly the cause of many problems in quantum gravity. The cosmological constant problem also comes down to the problem of how to describe a trans-Planckian world by a continuum theory that shall be renormalizable and background free. Here, we show that when quantizing gravity in a diffeomorphism-invariant method, in which background freedom arises asymptotically as an exact conformal symmetry, the zero-point energy vanishes identically. Thus, there is no problem with the cosmological constant, which is a physical constant, namely a renormalization group invariant. We also argue that new quanta based on the background freedom emerge and spacetime is discretized dynamically. Primordial fluctuations will originate from such quanta.
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ISSN:2050-3911
2050-3911
DOI:10.1093/ptep/ptac123