Related papers: Can the Big Bang Singularity be avoided by a singl…
A bouncing Universe avoids the big-bang singularity. Using the time-like and null Raychaudhhuri equations, we explore whether the bounce near the big-bang, within a broad spectrum of modified theories of gravity, allows for cosmologically…
The early Cosmology driven by a single scalar field, both massless and massive, in the context of Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity, is explored. We show the existence of nonsingular solutions of bouncing and loitering type (depending…
We study the collapse of a massless scalar field coupled to gravity. A class of blackhole solutions are identified. We also report on a class of solutions where collapse starts from a regular spacelike surface but then the collapsing scalar…
We consider a scalar field with a kinetic term non-minimally coupled to gravity in an anisotropic background. Various potentials for the scalar field are considered. By explicit examples, we show that how the anisotropy can change the…
We study the singularity created in the supercritical collapse of a spherical massless scalar field. We first model the geometry and the scalar field to be homogeneous, and find a generic solution (in terms of a formal series expansion)…
The formation of black holes or naked singularities is studied in a model in which a homogeneous time-dependent scalar field with an exponential potential couples to four dimensional gravity with negative cosmological constant. An analytic…
A scalar field with an exponential potential has the particular property that it is attracted into a solution in which its energy scales as the dominant component (radiation or matter) of the Universe, contributing a fixed fraction of the…
In the context of the current lack of compatibility of the classical and quantum approaches to gravity, exactly solvable elementary pseudo-Hermitian quantum models are analyzed supporting the acceptability of a point-like form of Big Bang.…
We consider different scenarios of the evolution of the universe, where the singularities or some non-analyticities in the geometry of the spacetime are present, trying to answer the following question: is it possible to conserve some kind…
After a brief review of current scenarios for the resolution and/or avoidance of the Big Bang, an alternative hypothesis is put forward implying an infinite increase in complexity towards the initial singularity. This may result in an…
The stealth scalar field is a non-trivial configuration without any back-reaction to geometry, which is characteristic for non-minimally coupled scalar fields. Studying the creation probability of the de Sitter universe with a stealth…
Important open questions in cosmology require a better understanding of the Big Bang singularity. In string and matrix theories, light-like analogues of cosmological singularities (singular plane wave backgrounds) turn out to be…
The coupling of gravity to a scalar field raises a number of interesting questions of principle since the usual minimal coupling obtained by replacing ordinary derivatives with covariant derivatives is not available -- they are the same…
In this article, we examine the possibility that there exist special scalar-tensor theories of gravity with completely nonsingular FRW solutions. Our investigation in fact shows that while most probes living in such a Universe never see the…
We consider real and complex scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity in the bulk spacetime and study their impact on the brane upon acquiring a non-vanishing vacuum expectation value. When examining the case of the complex scalar…
We show that, as a result of non-linear self-interactions, it is feasible, at least in light of the bounds coming from terrestrial tests of gravity, measurements of the Casimir force and those constraints imposed by the physics of compact…
We explore possible extensions of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) to scalar field theories. To avoid charged black hole remnants, the WGC requires the existence of a particle with a mass $m < g q M_P$, with charge $q$ and U(1) gauge…
We study the problem of the gravitational collapse of an object as seen by an external observer. We assume that the resultant spacetime is a match of an external Vaidya spacetime with an interior Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker (FRLW)…
We propose a new version of the scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) which would apply to any scalar field coupled to quantum gravity. For a single scalar it is given by the differential constraint $V''\leq…
Static, spherically symmetric configurations of gravity with nonminimally coupled scalar fields are considered in D-dimensional space-times in the framework of generalized scalar-tensor theories. We seek special cases when the system has no…