Related papers: Can metric-affine gravity be saved?
The cosmology of metric-affine gravity is studied for the general, parity preserving action quadratic in curvature, torsion and non-metricity. The model contains 27 a priori independent couplings in addition to the Einstein constant. Linear…
General Relativity assumes that spacetime is fully described by the metric alone. An alternative is the so called Palatini formalism where the metric and the connections are taken as independent quantities. The metric-affine theory of…
Symmetric Metric-Affine Gravity is a theory of gravity with an independent non-metric connection, and zero torsion. It can be thought of as ordinary metric gravity coupled to a rank-three tensor Q, symmetric in one pair of indices. This…
Recently a class of alternative theories of gravity which goes under the name f(R) gravity, has received considerable attention, mainly due to its interesting applications in cosmology. However, the phenomenology of such theories is not…
This work provides a short but comprehensible overview of some relevant aspects of metric-affine theories of gravity in relation to the physics and astrophysics of compact objects. We shall highlight the pertinence of this approach to…
The idea of "asymptotically free" gravity is implemented using a constrained mimetic scalar field. The effective gravitational constant is assumed to vanish at some limiting curvature. As a result singularities in contracting spatially flat…
Here we consider a metric-affine theory of gravity in which the gravitational Lagrangian is the scalar curvature. The matter action is allowed to depend also on the torsion and the nonmetricity, which are considered as the field variables…
We discuss the presence of ghostly instabilities for metric-affine theories constructed with higher order curvature terms. We mainly focus on theories containing only the Ricci tensor and show the crucial role played by the projective…
General Relativity (GR) exists in different formulations. They are equivalent in pure gravity but generically lead to distinct predictions once matter is included. After a brief overview of various versions of GR, we focus on metric-affine…
We consider metric-affine scenarios where a modified gravitational action is sourced by electrovacuum fields in a three dimensional space-time. Such scenarios are supported by the physics of crystalline structures with microscopic defects…
We show that almost all metric--affine theories of gravity yield Einstein equations with a non--null cosmological constant $\Lambda$. Under certain circumstances and for any dimension, it is also possible to incorporate a Weyl vector field…
We study f(R,T) theories of gravity, where T is the trace of the energy-momentum tensor T_{\mu\nu}, with independent metric and affine connection (metric-affine theories). We find that the resulting field equations share a close resemblance…
We provide a comprehensive overview of metric-affine geometries with spherical symmetry, which may be used in order to solve the field equations for generic gravity theories which employ these geometries as their field variables. We discuss…
We consider static and spherically symmetric wormhole solutions in extended metric-affine theories of gravity supposing that stability and traversability of these objects can be achieved by means of the geometric degrees of freedom. In…
The main principle of affine quantum gravity is the strict positivity of the matrix \{\hat g_{ab}(x)\} composed of the spatial components of the local metric operator. Canonical commutation relations are incompatible with this principle,…
Linearizing metric-affine~(scalar curvature)$^2$ gravity -- an ``umbrella'' theory that includes as special cases the metrical, Einstein-Cartan, and Weyl quadratic models -- on top of Minkowski spacetime leads to (numerous)…
A fundamental criterion of viability of any gravity theory is existence of a stable ground-state solution being either Minkowski, dS or AdS space. Stability of the ground state is independent of which frame is physical. In general, a given…
All attempts to quantize gravity face several difficult problems. Among these problems are: (i) metric positivity (positivity of the spatial distance between distinct points), (ii) the presence of anomalies (partial second-class nature of…
The idea that General Relativity could be an effective model, of a yet unknown theory of gravity, has gained momentum among theoretical physicists. The polynomial affine model of gravity is an alternative model of affine gravity that…
In a geometrical approach to gravity the metric and the (gravitational) connection can be independent and one deals with metric-affine theories. We construct the most general action of metric-affine effective field theories, including a…