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Olmo, G. J., Rubiera-Garcia, D., & Sanchez-Puente, A. (2018). Accelerated observers and the notion of singular spacetime. Class. Quantum Gravity, 35(5), 055010–18pp.
Abstract: Geodesic completeness is typically regarded as a basic criterion to determine whether a given spacetime is regular or singular. However, the principle of general covariance does not privilege any family of observers over the others and, therefore, observers with arbitrary motions should be able to provide a complete physical description of the world. This suggests that in a regular spacetime, all physically acceptable observers should have complete paths. In this work we explore this idea by studying the motion of accelerated observers in spherically symmetric spacetimes and illustrate it by considering two geodesically complete black hole spacetimes recently described in the literature. We show that for bound and locally unbound accelerations, the paths of accelerated test particles are complete, providing further support to the regularity of such spacetimes.
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Beltran Jimenez, J., Heisenberg, L., Olmo, G. J., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2018). Born-Infeld inspired modifications of gravity. Phys. Rep., 727, 1–129.
Abstract: General Relativity has shown an outstanding observational success in the scales where it has been directly tested. However, modifications have been intensively explored in the regimes where it seems either incomplete or signals its own limit of validity. In particular, the breakdown of unitarity near the Planck scale strongly suggests that General Relativity needs to be modified at high energies and quantum gravity effects are expected to be important. This is related to the existence of spacetime singularities when the solutions of General Relativity are extrapolated to regimes where curvatures are large. In this sense, Born-Infeld inspired modifications of gravity have shown an extraordinary ability to regularise the gravitational dynamics, leading to non-singular cosmologies and regular black hole spacetimes in a very robust manner and without resorting to quantum gravity effects. This has boosted the interest in these theories in applications to stellar structure, compact objects, inflationary scenarios, cosmological singularities, and black hole and wormhole physics, among others. We review the motivations, various formulations, and main results achieved within these theories, including their observational viability, and provide an overview of current open problems and future research opportunities.
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Izadi, A., Shacker, S. S., Olmo, G. J., & Banerjee, R. (2018). Observational effects of varying speed of light in quadratic gravity cosmological models. Int. J. Geom. Methods Mod. Phys., 15(5), 1850084–16pp.
Abstract: We study different manifestations of the speed of light in theories of gravity where metric and connection are regarded as independent fields. We find that for a generic gravity theory in a frame with locally vanishing affine connection, the usual degeneracy between different manifestations of the speed of light is broken. In particular, the space-time causal structure constant (c(ST)) may become variable in that local frame. For theories of the form f(R, R-mu nu R-mu nu), this variation in c(ST) has an impact on the definition of the luminosity distance (and distance modulus), which can be used to confront the predictions of particular models against Supernovae type Ia (SN Ia) data. We carry out this test for a quadratic gravity model without cosmological constant assuming (i) a constant speed of light and (ii) a varying speed of light (VSL), and find that the latter scenario is favored by the data.
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Delhom-Latorre, A., Olmo, G. J., & Ronco, M. (2018). Observable traces of non-metricity: New constraints on metric-affine gravity. Phys. Lett. B, 780, 294–299.
Abstract: Relaxing the Riemannian condition to incorporate geometric quantities such as torsion and non-metricity may allow to explore new physics associated with defects in a hypothetical space-time microstructure. Here we show that non-metricity produces observable effects in quantum fields in the form of 4-fermion contact interactions, thereby allowing us to constrain the scale of non-metricity to be greater than 1 TeV by using results on Bahbah scattering. Our analysis is carried out in the framework of a wide class of theories of gravity in the metric-affine approach. The bound obtained represents an improvement of several orders of magnitude to previous experimental constraints.
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Barrientos, E., Lobo, F. S. N., Mendoza, S., Olmo, G. J., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2018). Metric-affine f(R,T) theories of gravity and their applications. Phys. Rev. D, 97(10), 104041–10pp.
Abstract: We study f (R, T) theories of gravity, where T is the trace of the energy-momentum tensor T-mu v, with independent metric and affine connection (metric-affine theories). We find that the resulting field equations share a close resemblance with their metric-affine f(R) relatives once an effective energy-momentum tensor is introduced. As a result, the metric field equations are second-order and no new propagating degrees of freedom arise as compared to GR, which contrasts with the metric formulation of these theories, where a dynamical scalar degree of freedom is present. Analogously to its metric counterpart, the field equations impose the nonconservation of the energy-momentum tensor, which implies nongeodesic motion arid consequently leads to the appearance of an extra force. The weak field limit leads to a modified Poisson equation formally identical to that found in Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity. Furthermore, the coupling of these gravity theories to perfect fluids, electromagnetic, and scalar fields, and their potential applications arc discussed.
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Bazeia, D., Losano, L., & Olmo, G. J. (2018). Novel connection between lump-like structures and quantum mechanics. Eur. Phys. J. Plus, 133(7), 251–10pp.
Abstract: This work deals with lump-like structures in models described by a single real scalar field in two-dimensional spacetime. We start with a model that supports lump-like configurations and use the deformation procedure to construct scalar field theories that support both lumps and kinks, with the corresponding stability investigation giving rise to new physical systems. Very interestingly, we find models that support stable topological solutions, with the stability potential being able to support a tower of non-negative bound states, generating distinct families of potentials of current interest to quantum mechanics. We also describe models where the lump-like solutions give rise to stability potentials that have the shape of a double well.
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Bazeia, D., Marques, M. A., & Olmo, G. J. (2018). Small and hollow magnetic monopoles. Phys. Rev. D, 98(2), 025017–8pp.
Abstract: We deal with the presence of magnetic monopoles in a non-Abelian model that generalizes the standard 't Hooft-Polyakov model in three spatial dimensions. We investigate the energy density of the static and spherically symmetric solutions to find first order differential equations that solve the equations of motion. The system is further studied and two distinct classes of solutions are obtained, one that can also be described by analytical solutions and is called a small monopole, since it is significantly smaller than the standard 't Hooft-Polyakov monopole. The other type of structure is the hollow monopole, since the energy density is endowed with a hole at its core. The hollow monopole can be smaller or larger than the standard monopole, depending on the value of the parameter that controls the magnetic permeability of the model.
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Afonso, V. I., Olmo, G. J., Orazi, E., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2018). Mapping nonlinear gravity into General Relativity with nonlinear electrodynamics. Eur. Phys. J. C, 78(10), 866–11pp.
Abstract: We show that families of nonlinear gravity theories formulated in a metric-affine approach and coupled to a nonlinear theory of electrodynamics can be mapped into general relativity (GR) coupled to another nonlinear theory of electrodynamics. This allows to generate solutions of the former from those of the latter using purely algebraic transformations. This correspondence is explicitly illustrated with the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld theory of gravity, for which we consider a family of nonlinear electrodynamics and show that, under the map, preserve their algebraic structure. For the particular case of Maxwell electrodynamics coupled to Born-Infeld gravity we find, via this correspondence, a Born-Infeld-type nonlinear electrodynamics on the GR side. Solving the spherically symmetric electrovacuum case for the latter, we show how the map provides directly the right solutions for the former. This procedure opens a new door to explore astrophysical and cosmological scenarios in nonlinear gravity theories by exploiting the full power of the analytical and numerical methods developed within the framework of GR.
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Harko, T., Koivisto, T. S., Lobo, F. S. N., Olmo, G. J., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2018). Coupling matter in modified Q gravity. Phys. Rev. D, 98(8), 084043–13pp.
Abstract: We present a novel theory of gravity by considering an extension of symmetric teleparallel gravity. This is done by introducing, in the framework of the metric-affine formalism, a new class of theories where the nonmetricity Q is nonminimally coupled to the matter Lagrangian. More specifically, we consider a Lagrangian of the form L similar to f(1)(Q) + f(2)(Q)L-M, where f(1) and f(2) are generic functions of Q, and L-M is the matter Lagrangian. This nonminimal coupling entails the nonconservation of the energy-momentum tensor, and consequently the appearance of an extra force. The formulation of the gravity sector in terms of the Q instead of the curvature may result in subtle improvements of the theory. In the context of nonminimal matter couplings, we are therefore motivated to explore whether the new geometrical formulation in terms of the Q, when implemented also in the matter sector, would allow more universally consistent and viable realizations of the nonminimal coupling. Furthermore, we consider several cosmological applications by presenting the evolution equations and imposing specific functional forms of the functions f(1)(Q) and f(2)(Q), such as power-law and exponential dependencies of the nonminimal couplings. Cosmological solutions are considered in two general classes of models, and found to feature accelerating expansion at late times.
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Afonso, V. I., Olmo, G. J., Orazi, E., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2019). Correspondence between modified gravity and general relativity with scalar fields. Phys. Rev. D, 99(4), 044040–15pp.
Abstract: We describe a novel procedure to map the field equations of nonlinear Ricci-based metric-affine theories of gravity, coupled to scalar matter described by a given Lagrangian, into the field equations of general relativity coupled to a different scalar field Lagrangian. Our analysis considers examples with a single and N real scalar fields, described either by canonical Lagrangians or by generalized functions of the kinetic and potential terms. In particular, we consider several explicit examples involving foRthorn theories and the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity model, coupled to different scalar field Lagrangians. We show how the nonlinearities of the gravitational sector of these theories can be traded to nonlinearities in the matter fields and how the procedure allows to find new solutions on both sides of the correspondence. The potential of this procedure for applications of scalar field models in astrophysical and cosmological scenarios is highlighted.
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