English

Towards inflation and dark energy cosmologies from modified Gauss-Bonnet theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-11-26 v2 Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We consider a physically viable cosmological model that has a field dependent Gauss-Bonnet coupling in its effective action, in addition to a standard scalar field potential. The presence of such terms in the four dimensional effective action gives rise to several novel effects, such as a four dimensional flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe undergoing a cosmic inflation at early epoch, as well as a cosmic acceleration at late times. The model predicts, during inflation, spectra of both density perturbations and gravitational waves that may fall well within the experimental bounds. Furthermore, this model provides a mechanism for reheating of the early universe, which is similar to a model with some friction terms added to the equation of motion of the scalar field, which can imitate energy transfer from the scalar field to matter

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0512262,
  title  = {Towards inflation and dark energy cosmologies from modified Gauss-Bonnet theory},
  author = {Ishwaree P Neupane and Benedict M N Carter},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0512262},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

35 pages, 21 eps figs; section 6 expanded improving explanations, refs added, final in JCAP