Emergent cosmological constant from colliding electromagnetic waves

Abstract

In this study we advocate the view that the cosmological constant is of electromagnetic (em) origin, which can be generated from the collision of em shock waves coupled with gravitational shock waves. The wave profiles that participate in the collision have different amplitudes. It is shown that, circular polarization with equal amplitude waves does not generate cosmological constant. We also prove that the generation of the cosmological constant is related to the linear polarization. The addition of cross polarization generates no cosmological constant. Depending on the value of the wave amplitudes, the generated cosmological constant can be positive or negative. We show additionally that, the collision of nonlinear em waves in a particular class of Born-Infeld theory also yields a cosmological constant.