A thermal interpretation of the cosmological constant

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Abstract
A metric-affine geometrical structure is used to formulate a generalised theory of gravity, in which the motion of a test particle is characterised by a finite proper acceleration in the local tangent space. According to the local equivalence, valid for quantum systems, between acceleration and temperature, the theory is thermally interpreted as an effective classical description of the finite temperature geometry experienced by quantum fields at a microscopic level. In the macroscopic limit, the averaged contribution of the temperature to the effective geometry is represented by a cosmological constant, which can be interpreted then as a measure of the intrinsic temperature of the vacuum. With this interpretation it seems possible to understand why, on a cosmic scale, the current value of the cosmological constant must be so small, as implied by present observations.

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