The Fundamental Roles of the de Sitter Vacuum

We overview the fundamental roles of the de Sitter vacuum in cosmology where it is responsible for powering the early inflationary stage(s) and the present accelerated expansion, in black hole physics where it provides the existence of a wide class of regular black holes and self-gravitating solitons replacing naked singularities, and in particle physics where it ensures the intrinsic relation of the Higgs mechanism with gravity and spacetime symmetry breaking.