Non-zero torsion and late cosmology

In this work, we study some thermodynamical aspects associated with torsion in a flat FLRW spacetime cosmic evolution. By implementing two Ansatze for the torsion term, we find that the model admits a phantom regime or a quintessence behavior. This scheme differs from the $\Lambda$CDM model at the thermodynamical level. The resulting cosmic expansion is not adiabatic, the fulfillment of the second law of thermodynamics requires a positive torsion term, and the temperature of the cosmic fluid is always positive. The entropy of the torsion phantom scenario is negative, but introducing chemical potential solves this issue. For a Dirac-Milne type Universe, the torsion leads to a growing behavior for the temperature of the fluid but has no incidence on the rate of expansion.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure. Accepted version in EPJ

Dirac Matrices for Chern-Simons Gravity

A genuine gauge theory for the Poincar\'e, de Sitter or anti-de Sitter algebras can be constructed in (2n-1)-dimensional spacetime by means of the Chern-Simons form, yielding a gravitational theory that differs from General Relativity but shares many of its properties, such as second order field equations for the metric. The particular form of the Lagrangian is determined by a rank n, symmetric tensor invariant under the relevant algebra. In practice, the calculation of this invariant tensor can be reduced to the computation of the trace of the symmetrized product of n Dirac Gamma matrices \Gamma_{ab} in 2n-dimensional spacetime. While straightforward in principle, this calculation can become extremely cumbersome in practice. For large enough n, existing computer algebra packages take an inordinate long time to produce the answer or plainly fail having used up all available memory. In this talk we show that the general formula for the trace of the symmetrized product of 2n Gamma matrices \Gamma_{ab} can be written as a certain sum over the integer partitions s of n, with every term being multiplied by a numerical coefficient \alpha_{s}. We then give a general algorithm that computes the \alpha-coefficients as the solution of a linear system of equations generated by evaluating the general formula for different sets of tensors B^{ab} with random numerical entries. A recurrence relation between different coefficients is shown to hold and is used in a second, "minimal" algorithm to greatly speed up the computations. Runtime of the minimal algorithm stays below 1 min on a typical desktop computer for up to n=25, which easily covers all foreseeable applications of the trace formula.Comment: v2: 6 pages, no figures. Based on talk presented at I Cosmosul, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 2011. v3: references adde

Linear and Second-order Geometry Perturbations on Spacetimes with Torsion

In order to study gravitational waves in any realistic astrophysical scenario, one must consider geometry perturbations up to second order. Here, we present a general technique for studying linear and quadratic perturbations on a spacetime with torsion. Besides the standard metric mode, a "torsionon" perturbation mode appears. This torsional mode will be able to propagate only in a certain kind of theories.Comment: 6 pages, no figures. v2: version accepted for publication in EPJ