Related papers: Ghost Constraints on Modified Gravity
The study of linear perturbation theory for general functions of the Ricci and Gauss-Bonnet scalars is done over an empty anisotropic universe, i.e. the Kasner-type background, in order to show that an anisotropic background in general has…
In this lecture I address the issue of possible large distance modification of gravity and its observational consequences. Although, for the illustrative purposes we focus on a particular simple generally-covariant example, our conclusions…
Adding terms quadratic in the curvature to the Einstein-Hilbert action renders gravity renormalizable. This property is preserved in the presence of the most general renormalizable couplings with (and of) a generic quantum field theory…
We present the most general covariant ghost-free gravitational action in a Minkowski vacuum. Apart from the much studied f(R) models, this includes a large class of non-local actions with improved UV behavior, which nevertheless recover…
The modification of Einstein gravity at high energies is mandatory from a quantum approach. In this work, we point out that this modification will necessarily introduce new degrees of freedom. We analyze the possibility that these new…
We consider the infrared modification of gravity by ghost condensate. Naively, in this scenario one expects sizeable modification of gravity at distances of order 1000 km, provided that the characteristic time scale of the theory is of the…
Conformal transformations play a widespread role in gravity theories in regard to their cosmological and other implications. In the pure metric theory of gravity, conformal transformations change the frame to a new one wherein one obtains a…
In this paper, I point out that there is a curvature singularity problem appearing on non-linear level that generally plagues f(R) models that modify Einstein gravity in the infrared. It is caused by the fact that for the effective scalar…
We consider general curvature-invariant modifications of the Einstein-Hilbert action that become important only in regions of extremely low space-time curvature. We investigate the far future evolution of the universe in such models,…
General Relativity (GR) is an effective field theory valid in the infrared regime. Quadratic curvature extensions intended to probe ultraviolet physics generically propagate a massive spin-$2$ ghost and are therefore non-unitary. One route…
We consider a class of modified gravity models where the terms added to the standard Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian are just a function of the metric only. For linearized perturbations around an isotropic space-time, this class of models is…
We address the problem of the energy conditions in modified gravity taking into account the additional degrees of freedom related to scalar fields and curvature invariants. The latter are usually interpreted as generalized {\it geometrical…
A new representation is found for the action of the recently suggested ghost-free nonlocal gravity models generating de Sitter or Anti-de Sitter background with an arbitrary value of the effective cosmological constant. This representation…
There is a non-trivial four-derivative extension of the gravitational spectrum that is free of ghosts and phenomenologically viable. It is the so called $R^2$-gravity since it is defined by the only addition of a term proportional to the…
In the DGP model, the ``self-accelerating'' solution is plagued by a ghost instability, which makes the solution untenable. This fact as well as all interesting departures from GR are fully captured by a four-dimensional effective…
We propose a class of actions for the spacetime metric that introduce corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian depending on the logarithm of some curvature scalars. We show that for some choices of these invariants the models are…
Modifications to gravity that add additional functions of the Ricci curvature to the Einstein-Hilbert action -- collectively known as $f(R)$ theories -- have been studied in great detail. When considered as complete theories of gravity they…
The modified gravity with 1/R term (R being scalar curvature) and the Einstein-Hilbert term is studied by incorporating the phantom scalar field. A number of cosmological solutions are derived in the presence of the phantom field in the…
The modified Gauss-Bonnet gravity can be motivated by a number of physical reasons, including: the uniqueness of a gravitational Lagrangian in four and higher dimensions and the leading order $\alpha^\prime$ corrections in superstring…
Scale invariant theories of gravity give a compelling explanation to the early and late time acceleration of the Universe. Unlike most scalar-tensor theories, fifth forces are absent and it would therefore seem impossible to distinguish…