Related papers: Salvaging 1/R gravity models
Aims. We investigated the gravitational effects of a scalar field within scalar-tensor gravity as an alternative to dark matter. Motivated by chameleon, symmetron and f(R)-gravity models, we studied a phenomenological scenario where the…
We consider scalar-tensor theories of gravity in an accelerating universe. The equations for the background evolution and the perturbations are given in full generality for any parametrization of the Lagrangian, and we stress that apparent…
We consider the gravitational correction to the coupling of the scalar fields. Weak gravity conjecture says that the gravitational correction to the running of scalar coupling should be less than the contribution from scalar fields. For…
Weak gravity conjecture can be formulated as a statement that gravity must be the weakest force, compared to the other interactions in low energy effective field theory (EFT). Several arguments in favor of this statement were presented from…
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…
We consider an extended theory of Horava-Lifshitz gravity with the detailed balance condition softly breaking, but without the projectability condition. With the former, the number of independent coupling constants is significantly reduced.…
It is possible that fundamental constants may not be constant at all. There is a generally accepted view that one can only talk about variations of dimensionless quantities, such as the fine structure constant $\alpha_{\rm e}\equiv…
We study the unitarity of models with low scale quantum gravity both in four dimensions and in models with a large extra-dimensional volume. We find that models with low scale quantum gravity have problems with unitarity below the scale at…
It is known that the cosmological constant can be dynamically tuned to an arbitrary small value in classes of scalar tensor theories. The trouble with such schemes is that effective gravity itself vanishes. We explore the possibility of…
A modified gravity theory with $f(R)=R^2$ coupled to a dark energy lagrangian $L=-V(\phi)F(X)$ , $X=\nabla_{\mu}\phi\nabla^{\mu}\phi$, gives plausible cosmological scenarios when the modified Friedman equations are solved subject to the…
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…
We study canonical transformations of general relativity (GR) to provide a novel matter coupling to gravity. Although the transformed theory is equivalent to GR in vacuum, the equivalence no longer holds if a matter field minimally couples…
The purely affine, metric-affine and purely metric formulation of general relativity are dynamically equivalent and the relation between them is analogous to the Legendre relation between the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian dynamics. We show…
We revisit the Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture and investigate the possibility to impose that scalar interactions dominate over gravitational ones. More precisely, we look for consequences of assuming that, for leading scalar interactions,…
This work deals with $F(T)$ gravity models driven by real scalar fields with usual and phantom dynamics. We illustrate the results with examples of current interest, and we find some analytical solutions for scale factors and scalar fields.…
We explore the scalar field obtained under the conformal transformation of the spacetime metric $g_{\mu\nu}$ from the Jordan frame to the Einstein frame in $f(R)$ gravity. This scalar field is the result of the modification in the…
In the context of f(R)=R + alpha R^2 gravity, we study the existence of neutron and quark stars with no intermediate approximations in the generalised system of Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov equations. Analysis shows that for positive alpha's…
We study the asymptotic safety conjecture for quantum gravity in the presence of matter fields. A general line of reasoning is put forward explaining why gravitons dominate the high-energy behaviour, largely independently of the matter…
A scalar-tensor theory of gravity is considered wherein the gravitational coupling $G$ and the speed of light $c$ are admitted as space-time functions and combine to form the definition of the scalar field $\phi$. The varying $c$…
We consider gravity coupled to a second metric in the strong coupling limit, where the second kinetic term is absent. This system belongs to the recently discussed class of models of "gravity with auxiliary fields" by Pani et al. We prove…