The contribution of vacuum fluctuations to the cosmological constant is reconsidered studying the dependence on the used regularisation scheme. Then alternative explanations for the observed accelerated expansion of the universe in the present epoch are introduced which either modify gravity or add a new component of matter, dubbed dark energy. The chapter closes with some comments on attempts to quantise gravity.
The Dipole Anisotropy in the Decaying-Particle Universe Models with Nonzero Cosmological Constant