Physics and Cosmology : the Milli-Electron-Volt Scale

Abstract

A short review about vacuum energy and the cosmological constant is presented. The observed acceleration of the universe introduces a new meV energy scale. The problem is that, theoretically, the predicted vacuum energy is many orders of magnitude larger than $10^{-3}$ eV. The problem is a link between two Standard Models, namely the Standard Model of Particles and their Interactions (where the vacuum energy appears) and the Standard Cosmological Model (where a cosmological constant is a good fit to data), and perhaps it is a clue in our search for new physics.