Quantum vacuum energy in General Relativity

Abstract

The paper deals with the scale discrepancy between the observed vacuum energy in cosmology and the theoretical quantum vacuum energy (cosmological constant problem). Here, we demonstrate that Einstein's equation and an analogy to particle physics leads to the first physical justification of the so-called fine-tuning problem. This fine-tuning could be automatically satisfied with the variable cosmological term $\Lambda(a)=\Lambda_0+\Lambda_1 a^{-(4-\epsilon)}$, $0 < \epsilon \ll 1,$ where $a$ is the scale factor. As a side effect of our solution of the cosmological constant problem, the dynamical part of the cosmological term generates an attractive force and solves the missing mass problem of dark matter.