Quest for a Self-Tuning Brane-World Solution to the Cosmological Constant Problem

Abstract

It has been proposed that the geometry of an extra dimension could automatically adjust itself to compensate for an arbitrary energy density on the 3-D brane which we are presumed to inhabit, such that a static solution to Einstein's equation results. This would solve the long-standing cosmological constant problem, of why our universe is not overwhelmed by the enormous energy of the quantum vacuum fluctuations predicted by quantum field theory. I will review some of the attempts along these lines, and present a no-go theorem showing that these attempts are doomed, at least within one of the most promising classes of models.