Cosmological acceleration through transition to constant scalar curvature

As shown by Parker and Raval, quantum field theory in curved spacetime gives a possible mechanism for explaining the observed recent acceleration of the universe. This mechanism, which differs in its dynamics from quintessence models, causes the universe to make a transition to an accelerating expansion in which the scalar curvature, R, of spacetime remains constant. This transition occurs despite the fact that we set the renormalized cosmological constant to zero. We show that this model agrees very well with the currently observed Type Ia supernova data. There are no free parameters in this fit, as the relevant observables are determined independently by means of the current cosmic microwave background radiation data. We also give the predicted curves for number count tests and for the ratio, w(z), of the dark energy pressure to its density, as well as for dw(z)/dz versus w(z). These curves differ significantly from those obtained from a cosmological constant and will be tested by planned future observations.