Cosmological Constant, Gauge Hierarchy and Warped Geometry

Abstract

It is suggested that the mechanism responsible for the resolution of the gauge hierarchy problem within the warped geometry framework can be generalized to provide a new explanation of the extremely tiny vacuum energy density rho_V suggested by recent observations. We illustrate the mechanism with some 5D examples in which the true vacuum energy is assumed to vanish, and rho_V is associated with a false vacuum energy such that rho_V^{1/4} ~ TeV^2/M_{Pl} ~ 10^{-3} eV, where M_{Pl} denotes the reduced Planck mass. We also consider a quintessence-like solution to the dark energy problem.

Comments: 10 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, section on quantum corrections added, version to appear in Phys. Rev. D