Nonsingular Promises from Born-Infeld Gravity

Understand

Born-Infeld determinantal gravity formulated in Weitzenbock spacetime is discussed in the context of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmologies.

• It is shown how the standard model big bang singularity is absent in certain spatially flat FRW spacetimes, where the high energy regime is characterized by a de Sitter inflationary stage of geometrical character, i.e., without the presence of the inflaton field.
• This taming of the initial singularity is also achieved for some spatially curved FRW manifolds where the singularity is replaced by a de Sitter stage or a big bounce of the scale factor depending on certain combinations of free parameters appearing in the action.
• Unlike other Born-Infeld-like theories in vogue, the one here presented is also capable of deforming vacuum general relativistic solutions.