Related papers: Inflation Without a Trace of Lambda
We study $f(R)$ gravity models in the language of scalar-tensor theories. The correspondence between $f(R)$ gravity and scalar-tensor theories is revisited since $f(R)$ gravity is a subclass of Brans-Dicke models, with a vanishing coupling…
Supersymmetry is the most natural framework for physics above the TeV scale, and the corresponding framework for early-Universe cosmology, including inflation, is supergravity. No-scale supergravity emerges from generic string…
A theory of gravity alternative to general relativity is trace-free Einstein gravity, which has the remarkable property that the cosmological constant emerges as an integration constant. In this paper, we report two fully…
We present new exact cosmological inhomogeneous solutions for gravity coupled to a scalar field in a general framework specified by the parameter $\lambda$. The equations of motion (and consequently the solutions) in this framework…
We show that a Weyl-flat null origin of inflation need not be in tension with present observations. For canonical single-field inflation, any background with $\epsilon(N)\to \epsilon_\infty\in(0,1)$ as $N\to\infty$ is asymptotically…
We investigate the inflationary attractors in models of inflation inspired from general conformal transformation of general scalar-tensor theories to the Einstein frame. The coefficient of the conformal transformation in our study depends…
The universal character of the gravitational interaction provided by the equivalence principle motivates a geometrical description of gravity. The standard formulation of General Relativity \`a la Einstein attributes gravity to the…
Conformal scaling invariance should play an important role for understanding the origin and evolution of universe. During inflation period, it appears to be an approximate symmetry, but how it is broken remains uncertain. The appealing…
We consider the compactification of (d+n)-dimensional pure gravity and of superstring/M-theory on an n-dimensional internal space to a d-dimensional FLRW cosmology, with spatial curvature k=-1,0,+1, in Einstein conformal frame. The internal…
In scale-invariant models of fundamental physics, mass scales are generated by spontaneous symmetry breaking. In this work, we study inflation in scale-invariant $R^2$ gravity, in which the Planck mass is generated by a scalar field, which…
In a series of recent papers Kallosh, Linde, and collaborators have provided a unified description of single-field inflation with several types of potentials, ranging from power law to supergravity, in terms of just one parameter $\alpha$.…
The Weyl conformal tensor is the traceless component of the Riemann tensor and therefore, as is known, the information it contains does not appear explicitly in Einstein's equation. Following a rigorous mathematical treatment based on the…
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 develop a geometric realization of a broad class of generalized black hole entropy functionals by establishing their direct correspondence with the Misner$-$Sharp quasilocal mass and the Wald Noether$-$charge entropy in scalar$-$tensor…
Our primary objective is the formulation of a plausible cosmological inflationary model entirely in terms of a pure modified gravity without any a priori matter couplings within the formalism of non-Riemannian spacetime volume elements. The…
This paper discusses a simple procedure to reconstruct f (R)-gravity models from exact cosmological solutions of the Einstein field equations with a noninteracting classical scalar field-and-radiation background. From the kind of…
It is believed that the recent detection of large tensor perturbations strongly favors the inflation scenario in the early universe. This common sense depends on the assumption that Einstein's general relativity is valid at the early…
Inflation in the framework of Einstein-Cartan theory is revisited. Einstein-Cartan theory is a natural extension of the General Relativity, with non-vanishing torsion. The connection on Riemann-Cartan spacetime is only compatible with the…
A scale invariant, Weyl geometric, Lagrangian approach to cosmology is explored, with a a scalar field phi of (scale) weight -1 as a crucial ingredient besides classical matter \cite{Tann:Diss,Drechsler:Higgs}. For a particularly simple…
It is natural to expect a consistent inflationary model of the very early Universe to be an effective theory of quantum gravity, at least at energies much less than the Planck one. For the moment, $R+R^2$, or shortly $R^2$, inflation is the…