Can the cosmological constant undergo abrupt changes?

Abstract

The existence of a simple spherically symmetric and static solution of the Einstein equations in the presence of a cosmological constant vanishing outside a definite value of the radial distance is investigated. A particular succession of field configurations, which are solutions of the Einstein equations in the presence of the considered cosmological term and auxiliary external sources, is constructed. Then, it is shown that the associated succession of external sources tend to zero in the sense of the generalized functions. The type of weak solution that is found becomes the deSitter homogeneous space-time for the interior region, and the Schwartzschild space in the outside zone.