Related papers: Cuscuton Bounce
In this lecture I address the issue of possible large distance modification of gravity and its observational consequences. Although, for the illustrative purposes we focus on a particular simple generally-covariant example, our conclusions…
I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1 briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises the…
We examine the cosmological sector of a gauge theory of gravity based on the SO(4,2) conformal group of Minkowski space. We allow for conventional matter coupled to the spacetime metric as well as matter coupled to the field that gauges…
Einstein's General theory of relativity permits spacetime singularities, where null geodesic congruences focus in the presence of matter, which satisfies an appropriate energy condition. In this paper, we provide a minimal defocusing…
In this essay we offer a comprehensible overview of the gravitational aether scenario. This is a possible extension of Einstein's theory of relativity to the quantum regime via an effective approach. Quantization of gravity usually faces…
We propose a technically natural scenario whereby an initially large cosmological constant (c.c.) is relaxed down to the observed value due to the dynamics of a scalar evolving on a very shallow potential. The model crucially relies on a…
This work explains how the presence of a Type-IV singularity (a mild singularity) can influence the dynamics of a bouncing universe. In particular, we examine bounce cosmology that appears with a Type-IV singularity in the context of a…
In this work we study classical bouncing solutions in the context of $f({\sf R},{\sf T})={\sf R}+h({\sf T})$ gravity in a flat {\sf FLRW} background using a perfect fluid as the only matter content. Our investigation is based on introducing…
Theories with infinite volume extra dimensions open exciting opportunities for particle physics. We argued recently that along with attractive features there are phenomenological difficulties in this class of models. In fact, there is no…
It is generically believed that higher-order curvature corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert action might cure the curvature singularities that plague general relativity. Here we consider Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity, the only…
We present a simple model in which the weak energy condition is violated for spatially homogeneous, slowly evolving fields. The excitations about Lorentz-violating background in Minkowski space do not contain ghosts, tachyons or…
We consider a model belonging to the class of gravities with dynamical torsion. The model is free of ghosts and gradient instabilities about Minkowski and torsionless Einstein backgrounds. We find that at zero cosmological constant, the…
Zero point fluctuations of quantum fields should generate a large cosmological constant energy density in any spacetime. How then can we have anything other than de Sitter space without fine tuning? Well tempering -- dynamical cancellation…
We present a thorough stability analysis of modified gravity theories in the presence of matter fields. We use the Effective Field Theory framework for Dark Energy and Modified Gravity to retain a general approach for the gravity sector and…
A special class of conformal gravity theories is proposed to solve the long standing problem of the fine-tuned cosmological constant. In the proposed model time evolution of the inflaton field leaves behind a nearly vanishing, but finite…
We investigate the behaviour of bouncing Bianchi type IX `Mixmaster' universes in general relativity. This generalises all previous studies of the cyclic behaviour of closed spatially homogeneous universes with and without entropy increase.…
We explore the possibility of a non-singular bounce in our universe from a warped braneworld scenario with dynamical branes and a non-zero brane cosmological constant. Such models naturally incorporate a scalar sector known as the radion…
We propose a revised formulation of General Relativity for cosmological settings, in which the Einstein constant varies with the energy density of the Universe. We demonstrate that this modification has only phenomenological impact of…
The new ekpyrotic scenario attempts to solve the singularity problem by involving violation of the null energy condition in a model which combines the ekpyrotic/cyclic scenario with the ghost condensate theory and the curvaton mechanism of…
We consider the infrared modification of gravity by ghost condensate. Naively, in this scenario one expects sizeable modification of gravity at distances of order 1000 km, provided that the characteristic time scale of the theory is of the…