Related papers: Variational Principles and Cosmological Models in …
We discuss the issue of motivating the analysis of higher order gravity theories and their cosmologies and introduce a rule which states that these theories may be considered as a vehicle for testing whether certain properties may be of…
We study higher-order theories of gravitation; in particular, we will focus our attention on the second-order theory, in which conformal symmetry can be implemented.
This work investigates alternative theories of gravity, the solutions to their field equations and the constraints that can be imposed upon them from observation and experiment. Specifically, we consider the cosmologies and spherically…
The focus of the thesis is to obtain a universal formalism to evaluate the perturbations during inflation at all orders that can be applied to any theory of gravity and matter source in the early universe. We first look at the equivalence…
A Hamiltonian analysis of models given by a three-form field with a generic potential coupled to general relativity in four dimensions is performed. This kind of fields are naturally present in string theory and cosmological scenarios. In…
This is a brief review of modified gravity cosmologies. Generically extensions of gravity action involve higher derivative terms, which can result in ghosts and instabilities. There are three ways to circumvent this: Chern-Simons terms,…
Loop quantum gravity in its Hamiltonian form relies on a connection formulation of the gravitational phase space with three key properties: 1.) a compact gauge group, 2.) real variables, and 3.) canonical Poisson brackets. In conjunction,…
The 1+3 covariant approach and the covariant gauge-invariant approach to perturbations are used to analyze in depth conformal transformations in cosmology. Such techniques allow us to obtain very interesting insights on the physical content…
Minimally modified gravity theories are modifications of general relativity with two local gravitational degrees of freedom in four dimensions. Their construction relies on the breaking of 4D diffeomorphism invariance keeping however the…
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…
We discuss a class of alternative gravity theories that are specific to four dimensions, do not introduce new degrees of freedom, and come with a physical motivation. In particular we sketch their Hamiltonian formulation, and their relation…
We give a spinorial set of Hamiltonian variables for General Relativity in any dimension greater than 2. This approach involves a study of the algebraic properties of spinors in higher dimension, and of the elimination of second-class…
Cosmology in extended theories of gravity is considered assuming the Palatini variational principle, for which the metric and connection are independent variables. The field equations are derived to linear order in perturbations about the…
Modifications of Einstein's theory of gravitation have been extensively considered in the past years, in connection to both cosmology and quantum gravity. Higher-curvature and higher-derivative gravity theories constitute the main examples…
We propose a step-by-step manual for the construction of alternative theories of gravity, perturbatively as well as nonperturbatively. The construction is guided by no more than two fundamental principles that we impose on the gravitational…
We study the cosmological effects of adding terms of higher-order in the usual energy-momentum tensor to the matter lagrangian of general relativity. This is in contrast to most studies of higher-order gravity which focus on generalising…
In this Thesis we develop the geometric formulations for higher-order autonomous and non-autonomous dynamical systems, and second-order field theories. In all cases, the physical information of the system is given in terms of a Lagrangian…
In this work, we present a consistent Hamiltonian analysis of cosmological perturbations at all orders. To make the procedure transparent, we consider a simple model and resolve the `gauge-fixing' issues and extend the analysis to scalar…
Building on earlier work, we discuss a general framework for exploring the cosmological dynamics of Higher Order Theories of Gravity. We show that once the theory of gravity has been specified, the cosmological equations can be written as a…
In this report we discuss three aspects: 1) Semiclassical gravity theory (SCG): 4 levels of theories describing the interaction of quantum matter with classical gravity; 2) Alternative Quantum Theories: Discerning those which are derivable…