Modified Theories Of Gravity And Cosmological Applications

This reprint focuses on recent aspects of gravitational theory and cosmology. It contains subjects of particular interest for modified gravity theories and applications to cosmology, special attention is given to Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet, f(R)-gravity, anisotropic inflation, extra dimension theories of gravity, black holes, dark energy, Palatini gravity, anisotropic spacetime, Einstein-Finsler gravity, off-diagonal cosmological solutions, Hawking-temperature and scalar-tensor-vector theories.

In the last few years modified gravity theories have been proposed as extensions of Einstein's theory of gravity. Their main motivation is to explain the latest cosmological and astrophysical data on dark energy and dark matter. The study of general relativity at small scales has already produced important results (cf e.g. LNP 863 Quantum Gravity and Quantum Cosmology) while its study at large scales is challenging because recent and upcoming observational results will provide important information on the validity of these modified theories. In this volume, various aspects of modified gravity at large scales will be discussed: high-curvature gravity theories; general scalar-tensor theories; Galileon theories and their cosmological applications; F(R) gravity theories; massive, new massive and topologically massive gravity; Chern-Simons modifications of general relativity (including holographic variants) and higher-spin gravity theories, to name but a few of the most important recent developments. Edited and authored by leading researchers in the field and cast into the form of a multi-author textbook at postgraduate level, this volume will be of benefit to all postgraduate students and newcomers from neighboring disciplines wishing to find a comprehensive guide for their future research.

With a focus on modified gravity this book presents a review of the recent developments in the fields of gravity and cosmology, presenting the state of the art, high-lighting the open problems, and outlining the directions of future research. General Relativity and the ΛCDM framework are currently the standard lore and constitute the concordance paradigm of cosmology. Nevertheless, long-standing open theoretical issues, as well as possible new observational ones arising from the explosive development of cosmology in the last two decades, offer the motivation and lead a large amount of research to be devoted in constructing various extensions and modifications. In this review all extended theories and scenarios are first examined under the light of theoretical consistency, and are then applied in various geometrical backgrounds, such as the cosmological and the spherical symmetric ones. Their predictions at both the background and perturbation levels, and concerning cosmology at early, intermediate and late times, are then confronted with the huge amount of observational data that astrophysics and cosmology has been able to offer in the last two decades. Theories, scenarios and models that successfully and efficiently pass the above steps are classified as viable and are candidates for the description of Nature, allowing readers to get a clear overview of the state of the art and where the field of modified gravity is likely to go. This work was performed in the framework of the COST European Action “Cosmology and Astrophysics Network for Theoretical Advances and Training Actions” - CANTATA.

In the last few years modified gravity theories have been proposed as extensions of Einstein's theory of gravity. Their main motivation is to explain the latest cosmological and astrophysical data on dark energy and dark matter. The study of general relativity at small scales has already produced important results (cf e.g. LNP 863 Quantum Gravity and Quantum Cosmology) while its study at large scales is challenging because recent and upcoming observational results will provide important information on the validity of these modified theories. In this volume, various aspects of modified gravity at large scales will be discussed: high-curvature gravity theories; general scalar-tensor theories; Galileon theories and their cosmological applications; F(R) gravity theories; massive, new massive and topologically massive gravity; Chern-Simons modifications of general relativity (including holographic variants) and higher-spin gravity theories, to name but a few of the most important recent developments. Edited and authored by leading researchers in the field and cast into the form of a multi-author textbook at postgraduate level, this volume will be of benefit to all postgraduate students and newcomers from neighboring disciplines wishing to find a comprehensive guide for their future research.

This book presents the most common types of instabilities arising in classical field theories, namely tachyonic, Laplacian, ghost-like or strong coupling instabilities, also commenting on their quantum implications. The authors provide a detailed account on the Ostrogradski theorem and its implications for higher-order time-derivative field theories. After presenting the general concepts and formalism, they dive into its applications to particular field theories, using mainly modified gravity theories as examples. The book is intended for advanced undergraduate/graduate students, but can also be useful for researchers, for having a unified exposition of general results on instabilities in field theory and examples of their applications.

Modified gravity theories have been a main focus of theoretical cosmology research in the past decade or so, and have been quickly developing into a mature research field that attracts attention, interest and effort from both theoretical and observational cosmologists. To be prepared for fully exploiting the future observational data, and to provide a guidance for people who are new to this field, it is useful to have a comprehensive review to summarise the current state of knowledge and to foresee the future developments.This book presents expert reviews on different topics in the field, which are then coordinated and organised in a self-consistent and self-contained manner. It is suitable for graduate students and researchers interested in the frontier research of gravity theories.

This book reviews various modified gravity models, including those with modifications in the pure gravitational sector; those involving extra fields, that is, scalar-tensor and vector-tensor gravity theories; gravity models with Lorentz symmetry breaking; and nonlocal gravity models. The authors discuss both classical and quantum aspects of these theories. The book is unique in bringing together all the current alternatives to Einstein gravity in one source and serves as an excellent starting point for graduate students and other newcomers seeking an overview. This second edition has been expanded with new results from a variety of approaches including f(R,Q,P) gravity, galileon gravity and massive gravity. Extended discussions of Lorentz-breaking terms and of non-local field theory have been added and a completely new chapter is devoted to models based on non-Riemannian geometry.

Presents a detailed analysis of modified theories of gravity, discussing their development, cosmological and astrophysical implications and outstanding challenges.