The Strained State Cosmology

The chapter expounds a theory based on the interpretation of the dark energy as a strain energy of a physical continuum. The theory is based on the analogy that exists between the properties of space-time and the properties of elastic materials, when extended to four dimensions and the Lorentzian signature. In practice the starting point is an action integral that contains an additional term built as elastic potential energy of strained materials is. Besides this vacuum energy term matter/energy fields appear as usual. The strain energy term is based on the strain tensor of empty space-time which in turn is obtained from the non trivial part of the metric tensor. The Strained State Cosmology (SSC) is deduced from this approach when a Robertson-Walker symmetry is assumed: The result accounts for the accelerated expansion of the universe and agrees with observation passing four typical cosmological tests