Origin of the Cosmological Constant

Abstract

The observed value of the cosmological constant corresponds to a time scale that is very close to the current conformal age of the universe. Here we show that this is not a coincidence but is caused by a periodic boundary condition, which only manifests itself when the metric is represented in Euclidian spacetime. The circular property of the metric in Euclidian spacetime becomes an exponential evolution (de Sitter or $\Lambda$ term) in ordinary spacetime. The value of $\Lambda$ then gets uniquely linked to the period in Euclidian conformal time, which corresponds to the conformal age of the universe. Without the use of any free model parameters we predict the value of the dimensionless parameter $\Omega_\Lambda$ to be 67.2 %, which is within $2\sigma$ of the value derived from CMB observations.