English

Cosmology of fractional gravity

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2026-05-01 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

This is a first study of the cosmology of classical fractional gravity, a nonlocal proposal endowed with self-adjoint fractional d'Alembertian operators which serves as the basis for an ultraviolet-complete theory of quantum gravity. We derive the classical covariant nonlocal equations of motion for an arbitrary fractional exponent γ\gamma and reduce them to the Friedmann equations on a homogeneous and isotropic cosmological background. We find that de Sitter is an exact stable solution and that bouncing exact solutions are sustained by phantom (w<1w<-1) or ghost (ρ<0\rho<0) fluids, in the latter case with a new type of finite-future singularity in the barotropic index. Different representations of the form factor give exactly the same solutions, thus confirming that the formulation of fractional field theories relies on a universality class of form factors. We compare these preliminary results with what obtained in multi-fractional cosmological models mimicking the spacetime geometry of fractional quantum gravity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.28188,
  title  = {Cosmology of fractional gravity},
  author = {Iván Salvador-García and Gianluca Calcagni},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.28188},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

17 pages + appendices and references, 2 figures