GRAVITY WITHOUT THE METRIC, TORSION AND THE COSMOLOGICAL-CONSTANT PROBLEM

In the gravity without the metric formulation of Capovilla, Jacobson a nd Dell, we can introduce a theta-term which corresponds to torsion in the SL(2, C) gauge-theoretical framework. Torsion induces a topologic al phase to the matter wave function in the Lorentzian sector and in a local Lorentz frame, where it appears momentarily to be at rest, this phase may be associated with wormhole charge when in the Euclidean se ctor torsion induces the formation of instanton-anti-instanton pairs i n disjoint spaces leading to the formation of wormholes. This provides a link between Coleman's solution of the cosmological-constant proble m and the acquirement of the topological phase to the matter wave func tion in the Lorentzian sector, which leads to the vanishing of the vac uum energy density. This circumvents the problem associated with wormh oles and Euclidean cosmology.