Sequestering the Standard Model Vacuum Energy
  We propose a very simple reformulation of General Relativity, which
completely sequesters from gravity {\it all} of the vacuum energy from a matter
sector, including all loop corrections and renders all contributions from phase
transitions automatically small. The idea is to make the dimensional parameters
in the matter sector functionals of the 4-volume element of the universe. For
them to be nonzero, the universe should be finite in spacetime. If this matter
is the Standard Model of particle physics, our mechanism prevents any of its
vacuum energy, classical or quantum, from sourcing the curvature of the
universe. The mechanism is consistent with the large hierarchy between the
Planck scale, electroweak scale and curvature scale, and early universe
cosmology, including inflation. Consequences of our proposal are that the
vacuum curvature of an old and large universe is not zero, but very small, that
$w_{DE} \simeq -1$ is a transient, and that the universe will collapse in the
future.
