The 120 Order Of Magnitude Problem.

(The forth post in the dark energy series.)

Now to address the concern the that value of the cosmological constant is off by 120 orders of magnitude from what we expect from theory.  To start off with, let's talk about the Higgs Boson.

The public, media, and many scientists, are greatly anticipating the detection if the Higgs.  Nobody seems to be claiming the Higgs is some mysterious thing scientists seem to know nothing about.  It makes predictions.  It fits the physics well.  It makes the standard model work.  But, like the cosmological constant, it seems experimentally confirmed theory (things like supersymmetry is not confirmed yet.) and experiment disagree by several orders of magnitude about what it's mass should be.

The Hierarchy Problem
This is the famous Hierarchy problem.   Scientists admit to it's existence, but none seem to treat the Higgs as being mysterious. Here's the problem:

1. You calculate the Higgs mass using standard understood QFT.
2. You find that the Higgs mass should be up at the Planck scale because of loop divergences at energy scales we don't understand.
3. From experiment you find that the Higgs mass should be at the 100 GeV scale, (this is several orders of magnitude too small).
4. You invent some unobserved machinery, like supersymmetry, that explains why the Higgs mass should be at the 100 GeV scale after all. (Seriously, string theory and the hierarchy problem are the real reasons why we have supersymmetry.)
5. The media, even the Wikipedia, now nicknames the Higgs as the God Particle and people don't seem to take much issue with it.

Now let's look at the cosmological constant's size.  (Do these divergences make me look fat?)

Back to the paper:

The problem [of the cosmological constant's value] is similar (but worse) to the problem given by the Higgs mass, which scales quadratically in the standard model, and can be taken as an indication that “there is something we have not yet understood” in Higgs physics.

 How similar.  This is how we find the discrepancy:

1. You calculate the value of lambda (the cosmological constant) using standard understood QFT.
2. You find that the lambda should be a "Planck-scale vacuum energy" from loop divergences at energy scales we don't understand.
3. From experiment you find it is very small, about 120 orders of magnitude smaller than this Planck-scale value.
4. You successfully invent some unobserved machinery,  like string theory, that can explain the discrepancy.
5. Everyone maintains the cosmological constant is dark and mysterious.

Maybe it's high energy particle physics that is the real problem.

The problem of the cosmological constant being off by 120 orders of magnitude is analogous to the Higgs' mass being off by several orders of magnitude.   The real problem may have nothing to do with the Higgs or the cosmological constant being weird or mysterious, but may be that we just don't understand physics at high energies.

Now, just to be honest, the machinery needed to fix the cosmological constant problem needs to be more sophisticated than what is needed for the Higgs.

Still, given its analogous nature, in this context, I wonder if the cosmological constant is being treated unfairly.