Two-dimensional quantum dilaton gravity and the quantized cosmological constant

Abstract

The cosmological constant problem is one of the long-standing issues of modern physics. While we can measure the value of the cosmological constant with great accuracy, we are not able to calculate it in a coherent theoretical framework. On the contrary the theoretical predictions in Quantum Field Theory are radically different from observations. This disagreement is a hint of the difficult conciliation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity in a theory of Quantum Gravity. Current approaches to the cosmological constant problem, in particular, do not account for the quantum nature of the gravitational interaction and rely on perturbative calculations. In this thesis we address the issue in the simplified framework of two-dimensional dilaton-Maxwell gravity, coupled to scalar matter fields. In this setting we are able to quantize our model non-perturbatively in Dirac's approach to constrained systems. We determine that the realization of the classical symmetries at the quantum level provides a mechanism that fixes the value of the cosmological constant once a specific quantum state of the Universe is selected. Furthermore Quantum Gravity introduces opposite contributions to the cosmological constant, admitting a range of values compatible with current observations.Comment: PhD Thesis, July 2012, 127 pages, 2 figure