Related papers: $R^2$ inflation to probe non-perturbative quantum …
In this paper we investigate the cosmological dynamics of an up to cubic curvature correction to General Relativity (GR) known as Cosmological Einsteinian Cubic Gravity (CECG), whose vacuum spectrum consists of the graviton exclusively and…
Spacetime with general linear vector distortion is introduced. Thus, the torsion and the nonmetricity of the affine connection are assumed to be proportional to a vector field (and not its derivatives). The resulting two-parameter family of…
We construct a model of quintessential inflation in Palatini $R^2$ gravity employing a scalar field with a simple exponential potential and coupled to gravity with a running non-minimal coupling. At early times, the field acts as the…
The Starobinsky model was born in a cosmological scenario where conformally coupled matter quantum field fluctuations on the vacuum drive a non trivial semiclassical energy momentum tensor quadratic in curvature. The presence of an unstable…
We present a quantum quadratic gravity inflationary scenario that can accommodate the new cosmological constraints, which have disfavored Starobinsky inflation. The theory is asymptotically free in the ultraviolet, but 1-loop running is…
Asymptotically Safe theories of gravity have recently received much attention. In this work we discuss a class of inflationary models derived from quantum-gravity modification of quadratic gravity according to the induced scaling around the…
We propose a testable alternative to inflation directly built in a very general class of ultraviolet complete theories of quantum gravity enjoying Weyl invariance. After the latter is spontaneously broken, logarithmic quantum corrections to…
In the approach of the effective field theory of modified gravity, we derive the second-order action and the equation of motion for tensor perturbations on the flat isotropic cosmological background. This analysis accommodates a wide range…
This paper focuses on the search for a coherent and consistent formulation to describe quantum gravity corrections to Quantum Field Theory. We implement two fundamental ingredients discussed in previous analyses: on one hand, the…
Thanks to the Planck Collaboration, we know the value of the scalar spectral index of primordial fluctuations with unprecedented precision. In addition, the joint analysis of the data from Planck, BICEP2, and KEK has further constrained the…
Within the framework of metric-affine theories of gravity, where both the metric and connection are treated as independent variables, we consider actions quadratic in the Ricci scalar curvature coupled non-minimally to a scalar field…
Motivated by the idea that quantum gravity corrections usually suppress the power of the scalar primordial spectrum (E-mode) more than the power of the tensor primordial spectrum (B-mode), in this paper we construct a concrete gravitational…
Inflationary era of our Universe can be characterized as semi-classical because it can be described in the context of four-dimensional Einsteins's gravity involving quantum corrections. These string motivated corrections originate from…
Inflation models can be examined by the cosmological observations, WMAP, Planck, BICEP2 and so on. These observations directly constrain the spectral index, $n_s$, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$. Besides, from a theoretical point of…
Weyl (scale) invariant theories of scalars and gravity can generate all mass scales spontaneously. In this paper we study a particularly simple version -- scale invariant $R^2$ gravity -- and show that, during an inflationary period, it…
Higher-order theories of gravity are extensions to general relativity (GR) motivated mainly by high-energy physics searching for GR ultraviolet completeness. They are characterized by the inclusion of correction terms in the…
The recently suggested generalized unimodular gravity theory, which was originally put forward as a model of dark energy, can serve as a model of cosmological inflation driven by the effective perfect fluid -- the dark purely gravitational…
In the very early Universe matter can be described as a conformal invariant ultra-relativistic perfect fluid, which does not contribute, on classical level, to the evolution of the isotropic and homogeneous metric. However, in this…
We explore inflationary cosmology in a theory where there are two scalar fields which non-minimally couple to the Ricci scalar and an additional $R^2$ term, which breaks the conformal invariance. Particularly, we investigate the slow-roll…
A particular extension of Einstein's General Relativity up to and including quartic terms in the curvature tensor is minimal in the sense that it has a unique maximally symmetric vacuum and only a massless spin-2 excitation in its spectrum…