Previous Michelson Postdoctoral Prize Lectureships

Present observations favor a small but positive cosmological term. Recent theoretical developments suggest the possibility of fundamental brane degrees of freedom. If these branes are coupled to a three-index gauge field, brane nucleation may neutralize a large cosmological constant, much as pair creation neutralizes an electric field. I consider the possibility that the present cosmological term is the end result of a series of such nucleations.