An early and late times dynamical analysis of a scale invariant gravitational model with a vector scalar interaction: the isotropic case

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a scale-invariant gravitational model with a vector-scalar interaction, revealing its early universe behavior, fixed points, and late-time stability, including the dynamical generation of the Planck mass and de Sitter solutions.

Contribution

It extends a scale-invariant $R^2$ gravitational model by including a vector-scalar interaction, analyzing its dynamical behavior and stability at early and late times.

Findings

Early universe solutions are similar to the original model.

A new unstable fixed point appears in the extended model.

Late-time dynamics favor stable de Sitter fixed points.

Abstract

Scalar fields are widely and popularly used in cosmology in order to explain different phenomena among which, inflation and dark energy are two of the most popular ones. Specifically, in recent years, scale invariance in the gravitational sector has gained interest due to its simplicity, ability to model inflation and the dynamical generation of the Planck scale. In this paper, motivated by a non minimally coupled scale invariant $R^{2}$ gravitational model originally proposed by M.Rinaldi and L. Vanzo, we investigate how the inclusion of a vector scalar interaction that respects the scale invariance of the original model may affect the early and late time dynamics. We employ dynamical analysis tools in order to find the fixed points of the system and the local solutions for each variable around each fixed point finding out that the early universe solution of the extended model is compatible with that found in the original model with the exception of a new unstable fixed point appearing in the extended model. This new fixed point however has the same linealized solutions as the unstable fixed point found for the original model. We later employ numerical calculations in order to check that the analytical approach holds. Furthermore we show how the dynamical generation of the Planck mass is unaffected by the new field content of the model. Finally, we motivate and investigate a reduced version of the extended model finding out that, at late times, the extended model has only stable de Sitter fixed points where the scalar field becomes constant taking the role of the cosmological constant and the vector field is washed out.