Thermodynamics in f(R) theories of gravity with coupling between matter and geometry

Speaker: Dr. Jun Wang, School of Physics and Astronomy, Yunnan University, Kunming, China

Abstract: The result of the observational data from the type Ia supernovae indicates that our universe presently experiences an accelerating expansion, usually called the late-time cosmic acceleration. It makes the modern cosmology based on general relativity face troubles. In order to shed some lights on this observational issue, f(R) theories of gravity have been taken into consideration, which is a competitive member in modified theories of gravity due to the simplicity and stability. From the theoretical aspect, the present cosmic accelerating expansion can be explained by f(R) theories of gravity. Besides exploring the cosmic accelerating expansion, f(R) theories of gravity have been used to investigate other cosmological issues, in which thermodynamics is an important one. Recently, considering the coupling between matter and geometry, a more general type of f(R) gravitational model has been proposed.