Gravitational Theories Beyond General Relativity

✍ Scribed by Iberê Kuntz

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 88
• Series: Springer Theses
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Despite the success of general relativity in explaining classical gravitational phenomena, several problems at the interface between gravitation and high energy physics still remain open. The purpose of this thesis is to explore quantum gravity and its phenomenological consequences for dark matter, gravitational waves and inflation. A new formalism to classify gravitational theories based on their degrees of freedom is introduced and, in light of this classification, it is argued that dark matter is no different from modified gravity. Gravitational waves are shown to be damped due to quantum degrees of freedom. The consequences for gravitational wave events are also discussed. The non-minimal coupling of the Higgs boson to gravity is studied in connection with Starobinsky inflation and its implications for the vacuum instability problem is analyzed.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter ....Pages i-xii
Introduction (Iberê Kuntz)....Pages 1-21
Equivalence Between Dark Matter and Modified Gravity (Iberê Kuntz)....Pages 23-34
Gravitational Waves in Quantum Gravity (Iberê Kuntz)....Pages 35-41
Backreaction of Quantum Gravitational Modes (Iberê Kuntz)....Pages 43-55
Higgs-Starobinsky Inflation (Iberê Kuntz)....Pages 57-64
Vacuum Stability During Inflation (Iberê Kuntz)....Pages 65-75
Conclusions (Iberê Kuntz)....Pages 77-79
Back Matter ....Pages 81-82

✦ Subjects

Physics; Classical and Quantum Gravitation, Relativity Theory; Cosmology; Elementary Particles, Quantum Field Theory