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The Cosmological Constant Problem, Dark Energy, and the Landscape of String Theory

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arxiv 1203.0307 v2 pith:OBFLMBUN submitted 2012-03-01 astro-ph.CO gr-qchep-phhep-th

classification astro-ph.COgr-qchep-phhep-th
keywords energyvacuumconstantcosmologicaldarkexplainlandscapemagnitude
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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In this colloquium-level account, I describe the cosmological constant problem: why is the energy of empty space at least 60 orders of magnitude smaller than several known contributions to it from the Standard Model of particle physics? I explain why the "dark energy" responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe is almost certainly vacuum energy. The second half of the paper explores a more speculative subject. The vacuum landscape of string theory leads to a multiverse in which many different three-dimensional vacua coexist, albeit in widely separated regions. This can explain both the smallness of the observed vacuum energy and the coincidence that its magnitude is comparable to the present matter density.

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