Cosmology with alternatives and modifications to Einstein Gravity

Kåre Olaussen, NTNU Trondheim

After 100 years people are still trying to modify (or mutilate) the Einstein General Theory of Relativity. I will first give a general overview of various possibilities, as I learned at a workshop this summer.

Next I will discuss in more detail the possibility of a non-minimal coupling of Einstein gravity to scalar fields, and some modest computations I have done with a master student on that model (in the Robertson-Walker geometry).

The presentation will mainly be aimed at an audience with limited experience with general relativity.

(Slides will be available after the talk).