Shift-symmetric 𝖲𝖮(𝖭) multi-Galileon

A Poincarè invariant, local scalar field theory in which the Lagrangian and the equation of motion contain only up to second-order derivatives of the fields is called generalized Galileon. The covariant version of it in four dimensions is called Horndeski theory, and has been vigorously studied in applications to inflation and dark energy. In this paper, we study a class of multi-field extensions of the generalized Galileon theory. By imposing shift and SO(N) symmetries on all the currently known multi-Galileon terms in general dimensions, we find that the structure of the Lagrangian is uniquely determined and parameterized by a series of coupling constants. We also study tensor perturbation in the shift-symmetric SO(3) multi-Galileon theory in four dimensions. The tensor perturbations can obtain a mass term stemming from the same symmetry breaking pattern as the solid inflation. We also find that the shift-symmetric SO(3) multi-Galileon theory gives rise to new cubic interactions of the tensor modes, suggesting the existence of a new type of tensor primordial non-Gaussianity.

Thick braneworld model in nonmetricity formulation of general relativity and its stability

In this paper, we study the thick brane system in the so-called f(Q) gravity, where the gravitational interaction was encoded by the nonmetricity Q like scalar curvature R in general relativity. With a special choice of $$f(Q)=Q-b Q^n$$ f ( Q ) = Q - b Q n , we find that the thick brane system can be solved analytically with the first-order formalism, where the complicated second-order differential equation is transformed to several first-order differential equations. Moreover, the stability of the thick brane system under tensor perturbation is also investigated. It is shown that the tachyonic states are absent and the graviton zero mode can be localized on the brane. Thus, the four-dimensional Newtonian potential can be recovered at low energy. Besides, the corrections of the massive graviton Kaluza–Klein modes to the Newtonian potential are also analyzed briefly.

Thick branes with inner structure in mimetic f(R) gravity

In this paper, we study the structure and gravitational resonances of thick branes generated by a mimetic scalar field in f(R) gravity. We obtain several typical thick brane solutions for $$f(R)=R+\alpha R^2$$ f ( R ) = R + α R 2 . To study their stability, we analyze the tensor perturbation of the metric. It is shown that any thick brane model with $$df/dR>0$$ d f / d R > 0 is stable and the graviton zero mode can be localized on the brane for each solution, which indicates that the four-dimensional Newtonian gravity can be restored. The effect of the parameter $$\alpha $$ α on the gravitational resonances is studied. As a brane splits into multi sub-branes, the effective potential of the tensor perturbation will have an abundant inner structure with multi-wells, and this will lead to new phenomena of the gravitational resonances.

Gravitational resonances on f(T)-branes

In this work, we investigate the gravitational resonances in various f(T)-brane models with the warp factor $$\text {e}^{A(y)}=\tanh \big (k(y+b)\big )-\tanh \big (k(y-b)\big )$$ e A ( y ) = tanh ( k ( y + b ) ) - tanh ( k ( y - b ) ) , where f(T) is an arbitrary function of the torsion scalar T. For three kinds of f(T), we give the solutions to the system. Besides, we consider the tensor perturbation of the vielbein and obtain the effective potentials by the Kaluza–Klein (KK) decomposition. Then we analyze what kind of effective potential can produce the gravitational resonances. The effects of different parameters on the gravitational resonances are analyzed. The lifetimes of the resonances could be long enough as regards the age of our universe in some ranges of the parameters. This indicates that the gravitational resonances might be considered as one of the candidates for dark matter. Combining the current experimental observations, we constrain the parameters for these brane models.

Inflation with derivative self-interaction and coupling to gravity

We consider a subclass of Horndeski theories for studying cosmic inflation. In particular, we investigate models of inflation in which the derivative self-interaction of the scalar field and the non-minimal derivative coupling to gravity are present in the action and equally important during inflation. In order to control contributions of each term as well as to approach the single-term limit, we introduce a special relation between the derivative interaction and the coupling to gravity. By calculating observable quantities including the power spectra and spectral tilts of scalar and tensor perturbation modes, and the tensor-to-scalar ratio, we found that the tensor-to-scalar ratio is suppressed by a factor of $$(1+1/\gamma )$$(1+1/γ), where $$\gamma $$γ reflects the strength of the derivative self-interaction of the inflaton field with respect to the derivative coupling gravity. We placed observational constraints on the chaotic and natural inflation models and showed that the models are consistent with the current observational data mainly due to the suppressed tensor-to-scalar ratio.

Realization of blue spectrum in generalized Galileon super-inflation models

In the spirit of Galileon inflation and by considering some sorts of noncanonical kinetic terms in the action, we realize a stage of super-inflation leading to a blue-tilted tensor perturbation. We show also that addition of Galileon-like term to the action leads to avoidance of ghost instabilities in this setup.

Some topics on scale-invariant perturbations from noninflationary universe

In this paper, we review some topics on generations of scale-invariant primordial scalar and tensor perturbations in the early universe models different from inflation. The content includes generation of scale-invariant and Gaussian scalar perturbation in the ekpyrotic/cyclic universe, and production scale-invariant tensor perturbation in contracting universe. The main property of the models reviewed in this paper is the nonminimal couplings, include nonminimal couplings between the scalar fields and those to the gravity. By introducing these couplings, it is not difficult to achieve scale-invariances for the perturbations in the early universe models alternative to inflation.