Gravitational Theories Beyond General Relativity (eBook)

Iberê Kuntz (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2019 | 1st ed. 2019
XII, 82 Seiten
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-030-21197-4 (ISBN)

Infos

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.

Inhalt

Supervisor’s Foreword 6
Abstract 8
Acknowledgements 9
Contents 10
1 Introduction 12
1.1 Prelude 12
1.2 General Relativity 14
1.2.1 Cosmology 16
1.2.2 Gravitational Waves 17
1.3 Modified Gravity 20
1.3.1 Inflation 23
1.3.2 Quantum Gravity 27
1.4 Outline of This Thesis 29
References 31
2 Equivalence Between Dark Matter and Modified Gravity 33
2.1 Introduction 33
2.2 Classification of Extended Theories of Gravity 35
2.3 Application to Dark Matter 41
2.4 Conclusions 42
References 43
3 Gravitational Waves in Quantum Gravity 45
3.1 Introduction 45
3.2 Resummed Graviton Propagator and Gravitational Waves 46
3.3 Conclusions 50
References 50
4 Backreaction of Quantum Gravitational Modes 52
4.1 Introduction 52
4.2 Effective Quantum Gravity 54
4.3 Gravitational Wave Backreaction 55
4.4 Gravitational Wave Propagation 61
4.5 Conclusions 63
References 63
5 Higgs-Starobinsky Inflation 65
5.1 Introduction 65
5.2 Effective Field Theory of Gravity 66
5.3 Inflation in Quantum Gravity 66
5.4 Higgs-Starobinsky Inflation 68
5.5 Stability Under Radiative Corrections 69
5.6 Conclusions 71
References 71
6 Vacuum Stability During Inflation 73
6.1 Introduction 73
6.2 Non-minimal Couplings and the Mixing of Degrees of Freedom 75
6.3 Vacuum Stability in an Inflationary Universe 77
6.4 Conclusions 82
References 82
7 Conclusions 84
Reference 86
A Perturbative Unitarity 87
Reference 88

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.5.2019
• Reihe/Serie: Springer Theses
• Reihe/Serie: Springer Theses
• Zusatzinfo: XII, 82 p. 7 illus., 6 illus. in color.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Astronomie / Astrophysik
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Theoretische Physik
• Schlagworte: Dark Matter • Dark matter modified gravity equivalence • Effective Quantum Gravity • Higgs Inflation • Higher Derivative Gravity • modified gravity • Non-local Gravity • Quantum Field Theory of Gravity • Starobinsky Inflation
• ISBN-10: 3-030-21197-5 / 3030211975
• ISBN-13: 978-3-030-21197-4 / 9783030211974