Related papers: Variational principle and boundary terms in gravit…
Starting from the original Einstein action, sometimes called the Gamma squared action, we propose a new setup to formulate modified theories of gravity. This can yield a theory with second order field equations similar to those found in…
We show that, within some modified gravity theories, such as the Palatini models, the non-linear nature of the field equations implies that the usual naive averaging procedure (replacing the microscopic energy-momentum by its cosmological…
General Relativity is not the definitive theory of Gravitation due to several shortcomings which are coming out both from theoretical and experimental viewpoints. At large scales (astrophysical and cosmological scales) the attempts to match…
We study the Euclidean gravitational path integral computing the Renyi entropy and analyze its behavior under small variations. We argue that, in Einstein gravity, the extremality condition can be understood from the variational principle…
We generalize previous work by considering a novel gravitational model with an action given by an arbitrary function of the Ricci scalar, the matter Lagrangian density, a scalar field and a kinetic term constructed from the gradients of the…
The requirement that both the matter and the geometry of a spacetime canonically evolve together, starting and ending on shared Cauchy surfaces and independently of the intermediate foliation, leaves one with little choice for…
We analyze the problem of defining the black hole entropy when Chern-Simons terms are present in the action. Extending previous works, we define a general procedure, valid in any odd dimensions both for purely gravitational CS terms and for…
It is widely accepted that the fundamental geometrical law of nature should follow from an action principle. The particular subset of transformations of a system's dynamical variables that maintain the form of the action principle comprises…
Modified gravity can be considered as an alternative to dark energy. In a generalized theory of gravity, the universe may accelerate while containing only baryonic and dark matter. We study, in particular, the evolution of matter…
We study the conditions of integrability when the boundary terms are considered in the variation of the geometric contribution of the Einstein-Hilbert action. We explore the emergent physical dynamics that is obtained when we make a…
The Hamiltonian for physical systems and dynamic geometry generates the evolution of a spatial region along a vector field. It includes a boundary term which not only determines the value of the Hamiltonian, but also, via the boundary term…
We study the formation of large-scale structure in universes dominated by dark matter and driven to accelerated expansion by f(R) gravity in the Palatini formalism. If the dark matter is cold, practically all of these models are ruled out…
We study scalar field inflation in $F(R)$ gravity in the Palatini formulation of general relativity. Unlike in the metric formulation, in the Palatini formulation $F(R)$ gravity does not introduce new degrees of freedom. However, it changes…
An introduction to extended theories of gravity formulated in metric-affine (or Palatini) spaces is presented. Focusing on spherically symmetric configurations with electric fields, we will see that in these theories the central singularity…
Scale invariance is considered in the context of gravitational theories where the action, in the first order formalism, is of the form $S = \int L_{1} \Phi d^4x$ + $\int L_{2}\sqrt{-g}d^4x$ where the volume element $\Phi d^4x$ is…
We investigate the modified gravity theories in terms of the effective dark energy models. We compare the cosmic expansion history and the linear growth in different models. We also study the evolution of linear cosmological perturbations…
A key problem in the attempt to quantize the gravitational field is the choice of boundary conditions. These are mixed, in that spatial and normal components of metric perturbations obey different sets of boundary conditions. In the…
In the present paper we will investigate the relation between scalar-tensor theory and $f(R)$ theories of gravity. Such studies have been performed in the past for the metric formalism of $f(R)$ gravity; here we will consider mainly the…
We study modified theories of gravity of the f(R) type in Palatini formalism. For a generic f(R) lagrangian, we show that the metric can be solved as the product of a scalar function times a rank-two tensor (or auxiliary metric). The scalar…
The present article introduces a generalization of the (multisymplectic) Hamiltonian field theory for a Lagrangian density, allowing the formulation of this kind of field theories for variational problem of more general nature than those…