GRAVITY, COSMOLOGY AND PARTICLE PHYSICS WITHOUT THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT PROBLEM

This letter elucidates recent achievements of the ''nongravitating vac uum energy (NGVE) theory'' which has the feature that a shift of the L agrangian density by a constant does not affect dynamics. In the first -order formalism, a constraint appears that enforces the vanishing of the cosmological constant Lambda. Standard dynamics of gauge unified t heories (including fermions) and their SSB appear if a four-index fiel d strength condensate is present. At the vacuum state, there is exact balance (to zero) of the gauge fields condensate and the original scal ar fields potential. As a result it is possible to combine the solutio n of the A problem with inflation and transition to a Lambda = 0 phase without fine tuning after a reheating period. The model opens new pos sibilities for a solution of the hierarchy problem.