Related papers: Metric-affine gravity effects on terrestrial (exo-…
The currently feasible method of detection of Earth-mass planets is transit photometry, with detection probability decreasing with a planet's distance from the star. The existence or otherwise of short-period terrestrial planets will tell…
We examine static spherically symmetric polytropic spheres in Palatini f(R) gravity and show that no regular solutions to the field equations exist for physically relevant cases such as a monatomic isentropic gas or a degenerate electron…
We consider f(R,T) modified theory of gravity, in which the gravitational Lagrangian is given by an arbitrary function of the Ricci scalar and the trace of the energy-momentum tensor of the matter, in order to investigate the dark-matter…
A reasonable basis for future astronomical investigations of exoplanets lies in our best knowledge of the planets and satellites in the Solar System. Solar System bodies exhibit a wide variety of surface environments, even including…
The probability of the detection of Earth-like exoplanets may increase in the near future after the launch of the space missions using the transit photometry as observation method. By using this technique only the semi-major axis of the…
Probabilistic relationships between the mass and radius of planets are useful for a variety of purposes, including estimating the yields of planet discovery efforts and the radii of discovered planets given their masses. Previous work on…
The non-equivalence between the metric and Palatini formalisms of $f(R)$ gravity is an intriguing feature of these theories. However, in the recently proposed hybrid metric-Palatini gravity, consisting of the superposition of the metric…
Inverse techniques are used to extract information about an exoplanet's atmosphere. These techniques are prone to biased results if the appropriate forward model is not used. One assumption used in a forward model is to assume that the…
Most of the information on our cosmos stems from either late-time observations or the imprint of early-time inhomogeneities on the cosmic microwave background. We explore to what extent early modifications of gravity, which become…
A new catalogue of extrasolar planets is presented by re-analysing a selection of published radial velocity data sets using EXOFIT (Balan & Lahav 2009). All objects are treated on an equal footing within a Bayesian framework, to give…
We compare three different methods to evaluate uncertainties in the Earth's matter density profile, which are relevant to long baseline experiments, such as neutrino factories.
The intriguing choice to treat alternative theories of gravity by means of the Palatini approach, namely elevating the affine connection to the role of independent variable, contains the seed of some interesting (usually under-explored)…
Modified gravity theories have received increased attention lately due to combined motivation coming from high-energy physics, cosmology and astrophysics. Among numerous alternatives to Einstein's theory of gravity, theories which include…
We investigate Palatini $f(\mathcal{R},\mathcal{L}_m, \mathcal{R}_{\mu\nu}T^{\mu\nu})$ modified theories of gravity wherein the metric and affine connection are treated as independent dynamical fields and the gravitational Lagrangian is…
The discovery of many exoplanets has revealed an incredible diversity of orbital architectures. These orbital configurations are intrinsically linked to the potential for habitable environments within the system, since the gravitational…
We consider the cosmologies that arise in a subclass of f(R) gravity with f(R)=R+\mu ^{2n+2}/(-R)^{n} and -1<n<0 in the metric (as opposed to the Palatini) variational approach to deriving the gravitational field equations. The calculations…
Terrestrial planetary systems may exist around nearby stars as the Earth-sized counterparts to the many giant planets already discovered within the solar neighborhood. In this chapter we first discuss the numerous techniques which have been…
Within the framework of linearized Einstein field equations we compute the gravito-magnetic effects on a test particle orbiting a slowly rotating, spherical body with a rotating matter ring fixed to the equatorial plane. Our results show…
Knowledge of both the mass and radius of an exoplanet allows us to estimate its mean density, and therefore its composition. Exoplanets seem to fill a very large parameter space in terms of mass and composition, and unlike the…
The role of torsion in f(R) gravity is considered in the framework of metric-affine formalism. We discuss the field equations in empty space and in presence of perfect fluid matter taking into account the analogy with the Palatini…