Cosmological consequences of Omnia Sequestra
Résumé
Vacuum energy sequestering is a mechanism for cancelling off the radiative corrections to vacuum energy. The most comprehensive low energy model, proposed in [1], has the ability to cancel off radiative corrections to vacuum energy for loops of both matter and gravitons, in contrast to earlier proposals. Here we explore the framework and cosmological consequences of this model, which we call Omnia Sequestra, owing to its ability to sequester all. A computation of historic integrals on a cosmological background reveals some subtleties with UV sensitivity not seen in earlier models, but which are tamed in a Universe that grows sufficiently old. For these old Universes, we estimate the size of the radiatively stable residual cosmological constant and show that it does not exceed the critical density of our Universe today. We also study the effect of phase transitions, both homogeneous and inhomogeneous, and find that generically spacetime regions with a small cosmological constant do not need to be fine-tuned against the scale of the transition, a result which is now seen to hold across all models of sequestering. The model is developed in other ways, from its compatibility with inflation, to the correct inclusion of boundaries and the geometric consequences of certain choices of boundary data.