Exact spherically symmetric solutions in modified Gauss-Bonnet gravity from Noether symmetry approach

It is broadly known that Lie point symmetries and their subcase, Noether symmetries, can be used as a geometric criterion to select alternative theories of gravity. Here, we use Noether symmetries as a selection criterion to distinguish those models of $f(R,G)$ theory, with $R$ and $G$ being the Ricci and the Gauss-Bonnet scalars respectively, that are invariant under point transformations in a spherically symmetric background. In total, we find ten different forms of $f$ that present symmetries and calculate their invariant quantities, i.e Noether vector fields. Furthermore, we use these Noether symmetries to find exact spherically symmetric solutions in some of the models of $f(R,G)$ theory.Comment: 17 pages. Accepted for Publication in Symmetries in the special issue "Noether's symmetry approach in gravity and cosmology

Cosmological perturbations in f(G) gravity

We explore cosmological perturbations in a modified Gauss-Bonnet f(G) gravity, using a 1+3 covariant formalism. In such a formalism, we define gradient variables to get perturbed linear evolution equations. We transform these linear evolution equations into ordinary differential equations using a spherical harmonic decomposition method. The obtained ordinary differential equations are time-dependent and then transformed into redshift dependent. After these transformations, we analyze energy-density perturbations for two-fluid systems, namely for a Gauss-Bonnet field-dust system and for a Gaus-Bonnet field-radiation system for three different pedagogical f(G) models: trigonometric, exponential, and logarithmic. For the Gauss-Bonnet field-dust system, energy-density perturbations decay with an increase in redshift for all three models. For the Gauss-Bonnet field-radiation system, the energy-density perturbations decay with an increase in redshift for all of the three f(G) models for long-wavelength modes whereas for short-wavelength modes, the energy-density perturbations decay with increasing redshift for the logarithmic and exponential f(G) models and oscillate with decreasing amplitude for the trigonometric f(G) model.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1801.01758 by other author