Casimir Energy in Deconstruction and the Cosmological Constant

Abstract

We demonstrate that by employing the correspondence between gauge theories in geometric and in deconstructed extra dimensions, it is possible to transfer the methods for calculating finite Casimir energy densities in higher dimensions to the four-dimensional deconstruction setup. By this means, one obtains an unambiguous and well-defined prescription to determine finite vacuum energy contributions of four-dimensional quantum fields which have a higher-dimensional correspondence. Thereby, large kink masses lead to an exponentially suppressed Casimir effect. For a specific model we hence arrive at a small and positive contribution to the cosmological constant in agreement with observations.