Related papers: What is modified gravity and how to differentiate …
We consider spatially covariant modified gravity in which the would-be scalar degree of freedom is made non-dynamical and hence there are just two tensorial degrees of freedom, i.e., the same number of dynamical degrees of freedom as in…
The distinction between modified gravity and quintessence or dynamical dark energy is difficult. Many models of modified gravity are equivalent to models of coupled quintessence by virtue of variable transformations. This makes an…
To the astrophysicist faced with the puzzle of dark matter, this one appears under two different aspects: on the one hand in cosmology, i.e. at very large scales, where it seems to be made of a bath of particles; on the other hand at the…
The fundamental nature of Dark Matter (DM) has not been established. Indeed, beyond its gravitational effects, DM remains undetected by present experiments. In this situation, it is reasonable to wonder if other alternatives can effectively…
It has been suggested that Einstein's theory of General Relativity can be modified to accomodate mismatches between the gravitational field and luminous matter on a wide range of scales. Covariant theories of modified gravity generically…
We discuss the possibility of explaining observations usually related to the existence of dark matter by passing from the general relativity (GR) theory to a modified theory of gravity, the embedding theory proposed by Regge and Teitelboim.…
General Relativity (GR) remains the cornerstone of gravitational physics, providing remarkable success in describing a wide range of astrophysical and cosmological phenomena. However, several challenges underscore the urgent need to explore…
The acceleration of the universe can be explained either through dark energy or through the modification of gravity on large scales. In this paper we investigate modified gravity models and compare their observable predictions with dark…
This thesis is devoted to the study of gravitational theories which can be seen as modifications or generalisations of General Relativity. The motivation for considering such theories, stemming from Cosmology, High Energy Physics and…
We consider generalized energy conditions in modified theories of gravity by taking into account the further degrees of freedom related to scalar fields and curvature invariants. The latter are usually recast as generalized {\it geometrical…
There is evidence that Newton and Einstein's theories of gravity cannot explain the dynamics of a universe made up solely of baryons and radiation. To be able to understand the properties of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the universe…
In a recent paper [1], it was introduced a new class of gravitational theories with two local degrees of freedom. The existence of these theories apparently challenges the distinctive role of general relativity as the unique non-linear…
In this contribution one examines the generalization of the $f(R)$ theories of gravity where one introduces a non-minimal coupling between curvature and matter. This model has new and interesting features. %, specially concerning the energy…
The combination of GR and the Standard Model disagrees with numerous observations on scales from our Solar System up. In the concordance model of cosmology, these contradictions are removed or alleviated by the introduction of three…
Dynamical mass discrepancies in galaxies have two possible explanations: the existence of large amounts of dark matter or the breakdown of Newtonian gravity. True dark matter halos of galaxies could differ in several respects from apparent…
We conjecture that any modification of general relativity can be studied by the minimal geometric deformation approach provided that such modification can be represented by a traceless energy-momentum tensor.
We explore a new horizon of modified gravity from the viewpoint of the particle physics. As a concrete example, we take the $F(R)$ gravity to raise a question: can a scalar particle ("scalaron") derived from the $F(R)$ gravity be a dark…
Modern astrophysical and cosmological models are faced with two severe theoretical difficulties, that can be summarized as the dark energy and the dark matter problems. Relative to the former, it has been stated that cosmology has entered a…
We consider alternative theories of gravity with a direct coupling between matter and the Ricci scalar We study the relation between these theories and ordinary scalar-tensor gravity, or scalar-tensor theories which include non-standard…
Gravity is understood as a geometrization of spacetime. But spacetime is also the manifold of the boundary values of the spinless point particle in a variational approach. Since all known matter, baryons, leptons and gauge bosons are…