The cosmological constant and galaxy formation

We derive a restrictive upper bound for the cosmological constant from the requirement that the formation of galaxies in a cold dark matter scenario should be compatible with the present observational limits for possible anisotropies of the microwave background. If the total density parameter Ω (including the vacuum energy) is equal to the critical value (Ω = 1), we find for the contribution Ωv of the vacuum energy density the conservative bound |Ωᵥ < 0.7|⁠.