A critical value for dark energy

Abstract

Experimental evidence over a number of recent years has shown the density parameter of the universe omega converging to the critical value of 1, which defines a flat, Euclidean universe. No such calculations have defined a critical value for the most significant component of omega, that for the dark energy, omega lambda, but the new data provided by the Planck probe open up the previously unconsidered possibility that a particular value with special physical significance occurs at omega lambda = 2/3. If future observations should converge on exactly this value, then we may have the first indication that the explanation for this phenomenon lies in necessary constraints provided by fundamental laws of physics on possible cosmologies for the universe.