Quantum of the bare cosmological constant

Abstract

Abstract We show that there exist scalar field theories with plausible one-particle states in general $D$-dimensional nonstationary curved spacetimes whose propagating modes are localized on $d\le D$ dimensional hypersurfaces, and the corresponding stress tensor resembles the bare cosmological constant $\lambda_{\rm B}$ in the $D$-dimensional bulk. We show that nontrivial $d=1$ dimensional solutions correspond to $\lambda_{\rm B}< 0$. Considering free scalar theories, we find that for $d=2$ the symmetry of the parameter space of classical solutions corresponding to $\lambda_{\rm B}\neq 0$ is $O(1,1)$, which enhances to $\mathbb{Z}_2\times{\rm Diff}(\mathbb{R}^1)$ at $\lambda_{\rm B}=0$. For $d>2$ we obtain $O(d-1,1)$, $O(d-1)\times {\rm Diff}(\mathbb{R}^1)$, and $O(d-1,1)\times O(d-2)\times {\rm Diff}(\mathbb{R}^1)$ corresponding to, respectively, $\lambda_{\rm B}<0$, $\lambda_{\rm B}=0$, and $\lambda_{\rm B}>0$.