Abstract
We consider a Weyl-invariant formulation of gravity with a cosmological constant in -dimensional spacetime and show that near two dimensions the classical action reduces to the timelike Liouville action. We show that the renormalized cosmological term leads to a nonlocal quantum momentum tensor which satisfies the Ward identities in a nontrivial way. The resulting evolution equations for an isotropic, homogeneous universe lead to slowly decaying vacuum energy and power-law expansion. We outline the implications for the cosmological constant problem, inflation, and dark energy.
- Received 12 January 2016
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.94.044017
© 2016 American Physical Society