6,876 research outputs found

    Observational constraints on late-time Lambda(t) cosmology

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    The cosmological constant, i.e., the energy density stored in the true vacuum state of all existing fields in the Universe, is the simplest and the most natural possibility to describe the current cosmic acceleration. However, despite its observational successes, such a possibility exacerbates the well known cosmological constant problem, requiring a natural explanation for its small, but nonzero, value. In this paper we study cosmological consequences of a scenario driven by a varying cosmological term, in which the vacuum energy density decays linearly with the Hubble parameter. We test the viability of this scenario and study a possible way to distinguish it from the current standard cosmological model by using recent observations of type Ia supernova (Supernova Legacy Survey Collaboration), measurements of the baryonic acoustic oscillation from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the position of the first peak of the cosmic microwave background angular spectrum from the three-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.Comment: Some important revisions. To appear in Physical Review

    Symmetries and Ambiguities in the linear sigma model with light quarks

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    We investigate the role of undetermined finite contributions generated by radiative corrections in a SU(2)×SU(2)SU(2)\times SU(2) linear sigma model with quarks. Although some of such terms can be absorbed in the renormalization procedure, one such contribution is left in the expression for the pion decay constant. This arbitrariness is eliminated by chiral symmetry.Comment: 9 pages. Added references through the text; an author was added due to an important contribution; corrected typos; the title also was changed. Submitted to Modern Physics Letter
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