Cosmological constant problems and their solutions

Abstract

There are now two cosmological constant problems: (i) why the vacuum energy is so small and (ii) why it comes to dominate at about the epoch of galaxy formation. Anthropic selection appears to be the only approach that can naturally resolve both problems. The challenge presented by this approach is that it requires scalar fields with extremely flat potentials or four-form fields coupled to branes with an extremely small charge. Some recent suggestions are reviewed on how such features can arise in particle physics models.