Conditions for defocusing around more general metrics in Infinite Derivative Gravity

Abstract

Infinite Derivative Gravity is able to resolve the Big Bang curvature singularity present in general relativity by using a simplifying ansatz. We show that it can also avoid the Hawking- Penrose singularity, by allowing defocusing of null rays through the Raychaudhuri equation. This occurs not only in the minimal case where we ignore the matter contribution, but also in the case where matter plays a key role. We investigate the conditions for defocusing for the general case where this ansatz applies and also for more specific metrics, including a general Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) metric and three specific choices of the scale factor which produce a bouncing FRW universe.

10 pages, accepted by PRD

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Non-perturbative spectrum of non-local gravity
• Black-hole stability in non-local gravity
• Big Bounce or Double Bang? A Reply to Craig and Sinclair on the Interpretation of Bounce Cosmologies
• Gravitational radiation in Infinite Derivative Gravity and connections to Effective Quantum Gravity