Speaker
Description
This work investigates a toy model for inflation in a class of modified theo-
ries of gravity in the metric formalism. Instead of the standard procedure —
assuming a non-linear Lagrangian f (R) in the Jordan frame — we start from
a simple φ 2 potential in the Einstein frame and investigate the correspond-
ing f (R) in the former picture. Such approach yields plenty of new pieces
of information, namely a self-terminating inflationary solution with a linear
Lagrangian, a robust criterion for stability of such theories, a dynamical effec-
tive potential for the Ricci scalar R, the addition of an ad-hoc Cosmological
Constant in the Einstein frame leads to a Thermodynamical interpretation
of this physical system, which allows further insight on its (meta)stability
and evolution.
