Phys. Rev. Lett. 59, 2607 - 2610 (1987)

Anthropic Bound on the Cosmological Constant

Download: Page Images , PDF (702 kB), or Buy this Article (Use Article Pack) Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Steven Weinberg
Theory Group, Department of Physics, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712

Received 5 August 1987

In recent cosmological models, there is an "anthropic" upper bound on the cosmological constant Λ. It is argued here that in universes that do not recollapse, the only such bound on Λ is that it should not be so large as to prevent the formation of gravitationally bound states. It turns out that the bound is quite large. A cosmological constant that is within 1 or 2 orders of magnitude of its upper bound would help with the missing-mass and age problems, but may be ruled out by galaxy number counts. If so, we may conclude that anthropic considerations do not explain the smallness of the cosmological constant.


©1987 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v59/p2607
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.59.2607
PACS: 98.80.Dr, 04.20.Cv

[ Abstract  |  Previous article  |  Next article  |  Issue 22 ]