Local Self-Screening of Zero-Point Stress and Correlation Residue as an Effective Cosmological Constant

This research note proposes a possible reformulation of the cosmological constant problem based on local monopole self-screening of zero-point stress. The large microscopic zero-point stress is not assumed to be small; rather, its local monopole component is assumed to be screened by a vacuum response required for stability, so that it does not appear directly as a long-range gravitational source.

The observed cosmological-constant-like component is instead modeled as a coarse-grained stress-correlation residue, obtained through a nonlinear response-kernel projection of connected stress-tensor two-point functions. The note also presents a possible early-universe extension in which this self-screening is phase-dependent: an initially weakly screened vacuum may leave a large vacuum-like stress driving inflation-like expansion, while relaxation into a self-screened phase suppresses the monopole component and may provide a phenomenological route to reheating.

This is not claimed as a complete microscopic theory, but as an effective research program connecting zero-point stress, vacuum reaction, stress correlations, and a possible phase-dependent origin of both early vacuum-dominated expansion and the late-time dark-energy-like residue.