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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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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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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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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Afonso, V. I., Olmo, G. J., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2018). Mapping Ricci-based theories of gravity Into general relativity. Phys. Rev. D, 97(2), 021503–6pp.
Abstract: We show that the space of solutions of a wide class of Ricci-based metric-affine theories of gravity can be put into correspondence with the space of solutions of general relativity (GR). This allows us to use well-established methods and results from GR to explore new gravitational physics beyond it.
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