  We study gravitational properties of vacuum energy by erecting a geometry on
the stress-energy tensor of vacuum, matter and radiation. Postulating that the
gravitational effects of matter and radiation can be formulated by an
appropriate modification of the spacetime connection, we obtain varied
geometro-dynamical equations which properly comprise the usual gravitational
field equations with, however, Planck-suppressed, non-local, higher-dimensional
additional terms. The prime novelty brought about by the formalism is that, the
vacuum energy does act not as the cosmological constant but as the source of
the gravitational constant. The formalism thus deafens the cosmological
constant problem by channeling vacuum energy to gravitational constant.
Nevertheless, quantum gravitational effects, if any, restore the problem via
the graviton and graviton-matter loops, and the mechanism proposed here falls
short of taming such contributions to cosmological constant.

High Energy Physics - Theory;Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics;General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology;High Energy Physics - Phenomenology