Massive gravity and the suppression of anisotropies and gravitational waves in a matter-dominated contracting universe

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Published 11 January 2018 © 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab
, , Citation Chunshan Lin et al JCAP01(2018)011 DOI 10.1088/1475-7516/2018/01/011

1475-7516/2018/01/011

Abstract

We consider a modified gravity model with a massive graviton, but which nevertheless only propagates two gravitational degrees of freedom and which is free of ghosts. We show that non-singular bouncing cosmological background solutions can be generated. In addition, the mass term for the graviton prevents anisotropies from blowing up in the contracting phase and also suppresses the spectrum of gravitational waves compared to that of the scalar cosmological perturbations. This addresses two of the main problems of the matter bounce scenario.

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10.1088/1475-7516/2018/01/011