Abstract
We study isotropic and anisotropic (Bianchi I) cosmologies in Palatini and theories of gravity with a perfect fluid and consider the existence of nonsingular bouncing solutions in the early universe. We find that all models with isotropic bouncing solutions develop shear singularities in the anisotropic case. On the contrary, the simple quadratic model exhibits regular bouncing solutions in both isotropic and anisotropic cases for a wide range of equations of state, including dust (for ) and radiation (for arbitrary ). It thus represents a purely gravitational solution to the big bang singularity and anisotropy problems of general relativity without the need for exotic () sources of matter/energy or extra degrees of freedom.
- Received 12 July 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.82.084015
© 2010 The American Physical Society