Related papers: A Safe Beginning for the Universe?
We attempt to find new symmetries in the space-time structure, leading to a modified gravitation at large length scales, which provides the foundations of a quantum gravity at very low energies. This search begins by considering a unified…
A hallmark of non-perturbative theories of quantum gravity is the absence of a fixed background geometry, and therefore the absence in a Planckian regime of any notion of length or scale that is defined a priori. This has potentially…
Extended Theories of Gravity can be considered a new paradigm to cure shortcomings of General Relativity at infrared and ultraviolet scales. They are an approach that, by preserving the undoubtedly positive results of Einstein's Theory, is…
We consider the most general action for gravity which is quadratic in curvature. In this case first order and second order formalisms are not equivalent. This framework is a good candidate for a unitary and renormalizable theory of the…
Recently a scale invariant theory of gravity was constructed by imposing a conformal symmetry on general relativity. The imposition of this symmetry changed the configuration space from superspace - the space of all Riemannian 3-metrics…
The hypothesis that gravitational self-binding energy may be the source for the vacuum energy term of cosmology is studied in a Newtonian Ansatz. For spherical spaces the attractive force of gravitation and the negative pressure of the…
We study quantum gravity in $2+\epsilon$ dimensions in such a way to preserve the volume preserving diffeomorphism invariance. In such a formulation, we prove the following trinity: the general covariance, the conformal invariance and the…
The principles of quantum field theory in flat spacetime suggest that gravity is mediated by a massless particle with helicity $\pm2$, the so-called graviton. It is regarded as textbook knowledge that, when the self-coupling of a particle…
We generalize tensor-scalar theories of gravitation by the introduction of an abnormally weighting type of energy. This theory of tensor-scalar anomalous gravity is based on a relaxation of the weak equivalence principle that is now…
The gravitational asymptotic safety program strives for a consistent and predictive quantum theory of gravity based on a non-trivial ultraviolet fixed point of the renormalization group (RG) flow. We investigate this scenario by employing a…
We highlight how the existence of an ultraviolet completion for interacting Standard-Model type matter puts constraints on the viable microscopic dynamics of asymptotically safe quantum gravity within truncated Renormalization Group flows.…
The Planck scale is usually believed to be an unpassable wall. Putting a cutoff there and thinking of it as a quantized spacetime entity shows that. However, this is exactly the cause of many problems in quantum gravity. The cosmological…
We show that perturbative quantum gravity based on the Einstein-Hilbert action, has a novel continuum limit. The renormalized trajectory emanates from the Gaussian fixed point along (marginally) relevant directions but enters the…
The accepted idea that the expansion of the universe is accelerating needs, for compatibility to general relativity, the introduction of some unusual forms of matter. However, several authors have proposed that instead of making weird…
The present work deals with irreversible Universal thermodynamics. The homogenous and isotropic flat model of the universe is chosen as open thermodynamical system and non-equilibrium thermodynamics comes into picture due to the mechanism…
Quantum gravity has matured over the last decade to a theory which can tell in a precise and explicit way how cosmological singularities of general relativity are removed. A branch of the universe "before" the classical big bang is obtained…
We introduce a large family of homogeneous and isotropic cosmological solutions in quadratic gravity which are singularity-free at early and late times. This kind of smooth solutions only emerges beyond the unstable de Sitter branch…
It is shown here that a dynamical Planck mass can drive the scale factor of the universe to accelerate. The negative pressure which drives the cosmic acceleration is identified with the unusual kinetic energy density of the Planck field. No…
We propose the use of a gravitational uncertainty principle for gravitation. We define the corresponding gravitational Planck's constant and the gravitational quantum of mass. We define entropy in terms of the quantum of gravity with the…
A number of recent observations have suggested that the Einstein's theory of general relativity may not be the ultimate theory of gravity. The f(R) gravity model with R being the scalar curvature turns out to be one of the best bet to…