Cosmological constant, gauge hierarchy and warped geometry

It is suggested that the mechanism responsible for the resolution of the gauge hierarchy problem within the warped geometry framework can be generalized to provide a new explanation of the extremely tiny vacuum energy density ρv suggested by recent observations. We illustrate the mechanism with some 5D examples in which the true vacuum energy is assumed to vanish, and ρv is associated with a false vacuum energy such that ρv1/4∝TeV2/MP1∝10-3 eV, where MPI denotes the reduced Planck mass. We also consider a quintessence-like solution to the dark energy problem. (orig.)