Date: 28 MAY 2021 from 14:30 to 15:30
Generalized coupling theories are characterized by a nontrivial coupling between the gravitational metric and matter, mediated by an auxiliary rank-2 tensor. The actions generating the field equations are constructed so that these theories are equivalent to general relativity in a vacuum, and only differ from Einstein’s theory within a matter distribution. This talk will focus on one of the simplest realizations of these theories, termed the MEMe model. The MEMe model admits an exact solution for the coupling for a single perfect fluid; features of the model include varying gravitational wave propagation speeds and inflationary behavior in sufficiently dense matter distributions. I discuss some recent work on the post-Newtonian limit and junction conditions for the MEMe model.