An extension of Horava-Lifshitz gravity was recently proposed in order to address the pathological behavior of the scalar mode all previo
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.
We consider maximally symmetric 3-branes embedded in a six-dimensional bulk spacetime with Lovelock dynamics. We study the properties of the solutions with respect to their induced curvature, their vacuum energy and their effective compactness in the
extra dimensions. Some simple solutions are shown to give rise to self-accelerating braneworlds, whereas several others solutions have self-tuning properties. For the case of geometric self-acceleration we argue that the cross-over scale in between four-dimensional and higher-dimensional gravity and the scale of late-time geometric acceleration, fixed by the present horizon size, are related via the conical deficit angle of the six-dimensional bulk solution, which is a free parameter.
We consider four-dimensional de Sitter, flat and anti de Sitter branes embedded in a six-dimensional bulk spacetime whose dynamics is dictated by Lovelock theory. We find, applying a generalised version of Birkhoffs theorem, that all possible maximal
ly symmetric braneworld solutions are embedded in Wick-rotated black hole spacetimes of Lovelock theory. These are warped solitonic spaces, where the horizons of the black hole geometries correspond to the possible positions of codimension-2 branes. The horizon temperature is related via conical singularities to the tension or vacuum energy of the branes. We classify the braneworld solutions for certain combinations of bulk parameters, according to their induced curvature, their vacuum energy and their effective compactness in the extra dimensions. The bulk Lovelock theory gives an induced gravity term on the brane, which, we argue, generates four-dimensional gravity up to some distance scale. As a result, some simple solutions, such as the Lovelock corrected Schwarzschild black hole in six dimensions, are shown to give rise to self-accelerating braneworlds. We also find that several other solutions have self-tuning properties. Finally, we present regular gravitational instantons of Lovelock gravity and comment on their significance.
We consider a six-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell system compactified in an axisymmetric two-dimensional space with one capped regularized conical brane of codimension one. We study the cosmological evolution which is induced on the regularized brane as
it moves in between known static bulk and cap solutions. Looking at the resulting Friedmann equation, we see that the brane cosmology at high energies is dominated by a five-dimensional rho^2 energy density term. At low energies, we obtain a Friedmann equation with a term linear to the energy density with, however, negative coefficient in the small four-brane radius limit (i.e. with negative effective Newtons constant). We discuss ways out of this problem.
