We study the cosmological implications of interactions between spacetime quanta in the group field theory (GFT) approach to quantum gravity from a phenomenological perspective. Our work represents a first step towards understanding early Universe cosmology by studying the dynamics of the emergent continuum spacetime, as obtained from a fundamentally discrete microscopic theory. In particular, we show how GFT interactions lead to a recollapse of the Universe while preserving the bounce replacing the initial singularity, which has already been shown to occur in the free case. It is remarkable that cyclic cosmologies are thus obtained in this framework without any a priori assumption on the geometry of spatial sections of the emergent spacetime. Furthermore, we show how interactions make it possible to have an early epoch of accelerated expansion, which can be made to last for an arbitrarily large number of $e$-folds, without the need to introduce an ad hoc potential for the scalar field.

In this work we consider a phenomenological model for leptogenesis in the context of a Standard Model Extension with an axial-like background coupling to f

We introduce an extension of the Standard Model and General Relativity built upon the principle of local conformal invariance, which represents a generalization of a previous work by Bars, Steinhardt and Turok. This is naturally realized by adopting as a geometric framework a particular class of non-Riemannian geometries, first studied by Weyl. The gravitational sector is enriched by a scalar and a vector field. The latter has a geometric origin and represents the novel feature of our approach. We argue that physical scales could emerge from a theory with no dimensionful parameters, as a result of the spontaneous breakdown of conformal and electroweak symmetries. We study the dynamics of matter fields in this modified gravity theory and show that test particles follow geodesics of the Levi-Civita connection, thus resolving an old criticism raised by Einstein against Weyl’s original proposal.

We study the expansion of the Universe using an effective Friedmann equation obtained from the dynamics of GFT (Group Field Theory) isotropic condensates. The evolution equations are classical, with quantum correction terms to the Friedmann equation given in the form of effective fluids coupled to the emergent classical background. The occurrence of a bounce, which resolves the initial spacetime singularity, is shown to be a general property of the model. A promising feature of this model is the occurrence of an era of accelerated expansion, without the need to introduce an inflaton field with an appropriately chosen potential. We discuss possible viability issues of this scenario as an alternative to inflation

We study the dynamics of perturbations representing deviations from perfect isotropy in the context of the emergent cosmology obtained from the group field theory formalism for quantum gravity. Working in the mean field approximation of the group field theory formulation of the Lorentzian EPRL model, we derive the equations of motion for such perturbations to first order. We then study these equations around a specific simple isotropic background, characterised by the fundamental representation of S U ( 2 ) , and in the regime of the effective cosmological dynamics corresponding to the bouncing region replacing the classical singularity, well approximated by the free GFT dynamics. In this particular example, we identify a region in the parameter space of the model such that perturbations can be large at the bounce but become negligible away from it, i.e. when the background enters the non-linear regime. We also study the departures from perfect isotropy by introducing specific quantities, such as the surface-area-to-volume ratio and the effective volume per quantum , which make them quantitative.

Nonsingular bouncing cosmologies are realized in limiting curvature mimetic gravity by means of a multivalued potential $f(\square \varphi )$ depending on the d’Alembertian of a scalar field $\varphi$. We determine the functional form of such a potential so as to exactly reproduce the cosmological background dynamics obtained in the group field theory approach to quantum gravity. The original proposal made by Chamseddine and Mukhanov [ J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 03 (2017) 009], which was shown to lead to a background dynamics reproducing the effective dynamics of loop quantum cosmology, is here recovered as a particular case for some specific choices of the parameters of our model. We also clarify some issues related to the multivaluedness of the function $f$, showing in particular that its functional form can be unambiguously reconstructed by imposing appropriate matching conditions at the branching points.