We studied spherically symmetric solutions in scalar-torsion gravity theories in which a scalar field is coupled to torsion with a derivative coupling. We obtained the general field equations from which we extracted a decoupled master equation, the s
olution of which leads to the specification of all other unknown functions. We first obtained an exact solution which represents a new wormhole-like solution dressed with a regular scalar field. Then, we found large distance linearized spherically symmetric solutions in which the space asymptotically is AdS.
We investigate the cosmological applications of $F(T,T_G)$ gravity, which is a novel modified gravitational theory based on the torsion invariant $T$ and the teleparallel equivalent of the Gauss-Bonnet term $T_{G}$. $F(T,T_{G})$ gravity differs from
both $F(T)$ theories as well as from $F(R,G)$ class of curvature modified gravity, and thus its corresponding cosmology proves to be very interesting. In particular, it provides a unified description of the cosmological history from early-times inflation to late-times self-acceleration, without the inclusion of a cosmological constant. Moreover, the dark energy equation-of-state parameter can be quintessence or phantom-like, or experience the phantom-divide crossing, depending on the parameters of the model.
The $f(T,T_G)$ class of gravitational modification, based on the quadratic torsion scalar $T$, as well as on the new quartic torsion scalar $T_G$ which is the teleparallel equivalent of the Gauss-Bonnet term, is a novel theory, different from both $f
(T)$ and $f(R,G)$ ones. We perform a detailed dynamical analysis of a spatially flat universe governed by the simplest non-trivial model of $f(T,T_G)$ gravity which does not introduce a new mass scale. We find that the universe can result in dark-energy dominated, quintessence-like, cosmological-constant-like or phantom-like solutions, according to the parameter choices. Additionally, it may result to a dark energy - dark matter scaling solution, and thus it can alleviate the coincidence problem. Finally, the analysis at infinity reveals that the universe may exhibit future, past, or intermediate singularities depending on the parameters.
We investigate the cosmological implications of the recently constructed 5-dimensional braneworld cosmology with gravitating Nambu-Goto matching conditions. Inserting both matter and radiation sectors, we first extract the analytical cosmological sol
utions. Additionally, we use observational data from Type Ia Supernovae (SNIa) and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), along with requirements of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), in order to impose constraints on the parameters of the model. We find that the scenario at hand is in very good agreement with observations, and thus a small departure from the standard Randall-Sundrum scenario is allowed.
We study axially symmetric codimension-2 cosmology for a distributional braneworld fueled by a localised 4D perfect fluid, in a 6D Lovelock theory. We argue that only the matching conditions (dubbed topological) where the extrinsic curvature on the b
rane has no jump describe a pure codimension-2 brane. If there is discontinuity in the extrinsic curvature on the brane, this induces inevitably codimension-1 distributional terms. We study these topological matching conditions, together with constraints from the bulk equations evaluated at the brane position, for two cases of regularisation of the codimension-2 defect. First, for an arbitrary smooth regularisation of the defect and second for a ring regularisation which has a cusp in the angular part of the metric. For a cosmological ansatz, we see that in the first case the coupled system is not closed and requires input from the bulk equations away from the brane. The relevant bulk function, which is a time-dependent angular deficit, describes the energy exchange between the brane and the 6D bulk. On the other hand, for the ring regularisation case, the system is closed and there is no leakage of energy in the bulk. We demonstrate that the full set of matching conditions and field equations evaluated at the brane position are consistent, correcting some previous claim in the literature which used rather restrictive assumptions for the form of geometrical quantities close to the codimension-2 brane. We analyse the modified Friedmann equation and we see that there are certain corrections coming from the non-zero extrinsic curvature on the brane. We establish the presence of geometric self-acceleration and a possible curvature domination wedged in between the period of matter and self-acceleration eras as signatures of codimension-2 cosmology.
