Related papers: Initial singularity free quantum cosmology in two-…
Quantum gravity has matured over the last decade to a theory which can tell in a precise and explicit way how cosmological singularities of general relativity are removed. A branch of the universe "before" the classical big bang is obtained…
It is shown that the cosmological singularity in isotropic minisuperspaces is naturally removed by quantum geometry. Already at the kinematical level, this is indicated by the fact that the inverse scale factor is represented by a bounded…
We develop the Brans-Dicke theory of gravity in the context of varying constants of Nature. Using the unimodular formalism of General Relativity, we create a platform to provide physical relational times giving the evolution of physical…
We propose a class of theories that can limit scalars constructed from the extrinsic curvature. Applied to cosmology, this framework allows us to control not only the Hubble parameter but also anisotropies without the problem of…
The theories of brane world and multidimensional gravity are widely discussed in the literature in connection with problems of evolution of early Universe, including dark matter and energy. A natural physical concept is that a distinguished…
The breaking down of the equivalence principle, when discussed in the context of Sikorski's differential spaces theory, leads to the definition of the so-called differentially singular boundary (d-boundary) and to the concept of…
We discuss the cosmological implications of an extended Brans-Dicke theory presented recently, in which there is an energy exchange between the scalar field and ordinary matter, determined by the theory. A new mass scale is generated in the…
Analysing the static, spherically symmetric graviton-dilaton solutions in low energy string and Brans-Dicke theory, we find the following. For a charge neutral point star, these theories cannot predict non trivial PPN parameters, $\beta$…
We propose a simple scenario which explains why our Universe appears spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic. We use the Einstein-Cartan-Kibble-Sciama (ECKS) theory of gravity which naturally extends general relativity to include the spin…
The development of dark energy models has stimulated interest to cosmological singularities, which differ from the traditional Big Bang and Big Crunch singularities. We review a broad class of phenomena connected with soft cosmological…
The initial cosmological singularity in the framework of the general theory of relativity is resolved by introducing the effect of the uncertainty principle of quantum theory without violating conventional laws of physics. A plausible…
We review results about the development and asymptotic nature of singularities in `brane-bulk' systems. These arise for warped metrics obeying the 5-dimensional Einstein equations with fluid-like sources, and including a brane 4-metric that…
The emergent universe scenario is a proposal for resolving the Big Bang singularity problem in the standard Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmology. In the context of this scenario, the Universe originates from a nonsingular static…
We study quantum gravity in $2+\epsilon$ dimensions in such a way to preserve the volume preserving diffeomorphism invariance. In such a formulation, we prove the following trinity: the general covariance, the conformal invariance and the…
We study the quantum fate of a naked curvature singularity sourced by a scalar field via several methods and compare the results obtained. The first method relies on relativistic quantum mechanics on a fixed background employing the…
Brans-Dicke gravity does not always reduce to General Relativity in the limit $\omega\to\infty$ for the coupling constant. This anomalous behavior is examined within the formalism of the first-order thermodynamics of scalar-tensor gravity.…
The properties of future singularities are investigated in the universe dominated by dark energy including the phantom-type fluid. We classify the finite-time singularities into four classes and explicitly present the models which give rise…
Among the suggested solutions to the cosmological constant problem, we find the idea of a dynamic vacuum, with an energy density decaying with the universe expansion. We investigate the possibility of a variation in the gravitational…
In unimodular-like theories, the constants of nature are demoted from pre-given parameters to phase space variables. Their canonical duals provide physical time variables. We investigate how this interacts with an alternative approach to…
We propose an improved variant of the third-quantization scheme, for the spatially homogeneous and isotropic cosmological models in Einstein gravity coupled with a neutral massless scalar field. Our strategy is to specify a semi-Riemannian…