[SEMINARI] SEMINAR: Gonzalo Olmo Alba, Testing f(R) cosmologies with atoms

[German Rodrigo Garcia]

Testing f(R) cosmologies with atoms

Gonzalo Olmo Alba
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Friday, 27 of April of 2007     12:00 PM
Theoretical Physics Seminars room

Abstract

We study the effects that the gravitational interaction of f(R) theories 
of gravity in Palatini formalism has on the stationary states of the 
Hydrogen atom. We show that the role of gravity in this system is very 
important for lagrangians f(R) with terms that grow at low curvatures, 
which have been proposed to explain the accelerated expansion rate of the 
universe. In fact, new gravitationally induced terms in the Hamiltonian 
generate a number of instabilities that are incompatible with the very 
existence of bound states. The universe that we observe is, therefore, 
incompatible with that kind of gravitational interaction. For lagrangians 
with corrections at high curvatures, the well-known stationary solutions 
are estable though other problems may arise at the quantum level.