Casimir energy, the cosmological constant and massive gravitons
Abstract
Description
The cosmological constant appearing in the Wheeler-De Witt equation is considered as an eigenvalue of the associated Sturm-Liouville problem. A variational approach with Gaussian trial wave functionals is used as a method to study such a problem. We approximate the equation to one loop in a Schwarzschild background and a zeta function regularization is involved to handle with divergences. The regularization is closely related to the subtraction procedure appearing in the computation of Casimir energy in a curved background. A renormalization procedure is introduced to remove the infinities together with a renormalization group equation. The case of massive gravitons is discussed.
19 pages. Uses pi2005.cls and pi2005.sty. Talk given at The 8-th International Conference "Path Integrals. From Quantum Information to Cosmology. Prague 6-10 June 2005. Extended version of the talk given at Talk given at "QFEXT'05", the 7-th workshop on quantum field theory under the influence of external conditions, Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 5-9, 2005 and at QG05 Constrained dynamics and quantum gravity 05, Cala Gonone (Sardinia, Italy), September 12-16, 2005
19 pages. Uses pi2005.cls and pi2005.sty. Talk given at The 8-th International Conference "Path Integrals. From Quantum Information to Cosmology. Prague 6-10 June 2005. Extended version of the talk given at Talk given at "QFEXT'05", the 7-th workshop on quantum field theory under the influence of external conditions, Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 5-9, 2005 and at QG05 Constrained dynamics and quantum gravity 05, Cala Gonone (Sardinia, Italy), September 12-16, 2005