Paper detail

Effective cosmological constant from TeV-scale physics

It has been suggested previously that the observed cosmological constant Lambda corresponds to the remnant vacuum energy density of dynamical processes taking place at a cosmic age set by the mass scale M \sim E_{ew} of ultramassive particles with electroweak interactions. Here, a simple modification of the nondissipative dynamic equations of q-theory is presented, which produces a remnant vacuum energy density (effective cosmological constant) of the correct order of magnitude. Combined with the observed value of Lambda, a first estimate of the required value of the energy scale E_{ew} ranges from 3 to 9 TeV, depending on the number of species of ultramassive particles and assuming a dissipative coupling constant of order unity. If correct, this estimate implies the existence of new TeV-scale physics beyond the standard model.