Non-canonical volume-form formulation of modified gravity theories and cosmology

Inflationary Cosmology in Modified Gravity Theories

We review inflationary cosmology in modified gravity such as R gravity with its extensions in order to generalize the Starobinsky inflation model. In particular, we explore inflation realized by three kinds of effects: modification of gravity, the quantum anomaly, and the R term in loop quantum cosmology. It is explicitly demonstrated that in these inflationary models, the spectral index of sca...

Non-singular Cosmology in Modified Gravity

A non-singular cosmology is derived in modified gravity (MOG). The universe begins in the distant past in a contracting de Sitter phase, is non-singular at t = 0 and then describes approximately the standard radiation dominated solution before the time of decoupling. The spacetime in the neighborhood of t = 0 is described by Minkowski spacetime in which the Weyl curvature tensor vanishes and th...

Modified gravity and cosmology

A Non-Polynomial Gravity Formulation for Loop Quantum Cosmology Bounce

Recently the so-called mimetic gravity approach has been used to obtain corrections to the Friedmann equation of General Relativity similar to the ones present in loop quantum cosmology. In this paper, we propose an alternative way to derive this modified Friedmann equation via the so-called non-polynomial gravity approach, which consists of adding geometric non-polynomial higher derivative ter...

Cosmological singularities and modified theories of gravity

We consider perturbative modifications of the Friedmann equations in terms of energy density corresponding to modified theories of gravity proposed as an alternative route to comply with the observed accelerated expansion of the universe. Assuming that the present matter content of the universe is a pressureless fluid, the possible singularities that may arise as the final state of the universe...