Related papers: Gravity and the Hierarchy Problem
$f(R)$-Gravity, a simple generalization of Einstein's General theory of Relativity has been considered in the context of Cosmology as one of the approaches to explain phenomena such as early-time inflation and late-time accelerated…
A century ago, Einstein formulated his elegant and elaborate theory of General Relativity, which has so far withstood a multitude of empirical tests with remarkable success. Notwithstanding the triumphs of Einstein's theory, the tenacious…
We propose that at the beginning of the universe gravity existed in a limbo either because it was switched off or because it was only conformally coupled to all particles. This picture can be reverse-engineered from the requirement that the…
We argue that a quantum aether is consistent with the principle of relativity and can provide an economical way of having an invariant quantum gravity or Planck scale. We also show that it may change the effective scale at which quantum…
Expanding the black hole thermodynamics from the horizon to achronal Cauchy hypersurface, the general relation between the Einstein equation and thermodynamics is established. Starting from trivial entropy that is generalized by…
The $f(R)$ gravity models formulated in Einstein conformal frame are equivalent to Einstein gravity together with a minimally coupled scalar field. The scalar field couples with the matter sector and the coupling term is given by the…
In this paper, we present a new theoretical scenario in which both dynamical Dirac fermions and Einstein's gravity with a positive cosmological constant and torsion emerge via a spontaneous symmetry breaking in a topological phase. This…
Inflation with tunneling from a false to a true vacuum becomes viable in the presence of a scalar field that slows down the initial de Sitter phase. As a by-product this field also sets dynamically the value of the Newton constant observed…
We show that promoting the trace part of the Einstein equations to a trivial identity results in the Newton constant being an integration constant. Thus, in this formulation the Newton constant is a global dynamical degree of freedom which…
The classical evolution and the quantum generation processes of the scalar- and tensor-type cosmological perturbations in the context of a broad class of generalized gravity theories are presented in unified forms. The exact forms of final…
We demonstrate that the combination of the ideas of unimodular gravity, scale invariance, and the existence of an exactly massless dilaton leads to the evolution of the universe supported by present observations: inflation in the past,…
We revisit inflation in induced gravity. Our focus is on models where the low scale Planck mass is completely determined by the breaking of the scaling symmetry in the field theory sector. The Higgs-like field which breaks the symmetry with…
An alternative scenario about the phenomenology of primordial Universe is k-inflation. According to this concept, inflation can be achieved by nonstandard kinetic term of scalar field, namely the inflaton. In this project we focus on…
We show how Einstein-Cartan gravity can accommodate both global scale and local scale (Weyl) invariance. To this end, we construct a wide class of models with nonpropagaing torsion and a nonminimally coupled scalar field. In…
The cosmological constant and its phenomenology remain among the greatest puzzles in theoretical physics. We review how modifications of Einstein's general relativity could alleviate the different problems associated with it that result…
The spontaneous symmetry breaking for the massless scalar field naturally arises from the framework of the effective theory (the non-minimal coupling of gravity to a scalar field). A magic key ingredient is to add the large vacuum energy…
It is proposed that gravity may arise in the low energy limit of a model of matter fields defined on a special kind of a dynamical random lattice. Time is discretized into regular intervals, whereas the discretization of space is random and…
Contributed talk at the Seventh Marcel Grossman Meeting on Gravity, June 24-30. A theory of evolution of the universe requires both a mutation mechanism and a selection mechanism. We believe that both can be encountered in the stochastic…
Quantum fluctuations of scalar fields during inflation could determine the very large-scale structure of the universe. In the case of general scalar-tensor gravity theories these fluctuations lead to the diffusion of fundamental constants…
We describe a kinetic theory approach to quantum gravity -- by which we mean a theory of the microscopic structure of spacetime, not a theory obtained by quantizing general relativity. A figurative conception of this program is like…