R. F. L. Holanda, S. H. Pereira

In this paper we study cosmological signatures of modified gravity theories that can be written as a coupling between a extra scalar field and the electromagnetic part of the usual Lagrangian for the matter fields. In these frameworks all the electromagnetic sector of the theory is affected and variations of fundamental constants, of the cosmic distance duality relation and of the evolution law of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) are expected and are related each other. In order to search these variations we perform jointly analyses with angular diameter distances of galaxy clusters, luminosity distances of type Ia supernovae and $T_{CMB}(z)$ measurements. We obtain tight constraints with no indication of violation of the standard framework.

Roman Plyatsko, Mykola Fenyk

The typical motions of a spinning test particle in Schwarzschild's background which show the strong repulsive action of the highly relativistic spin-gravity coupling are considered using the exact Mathisson-Papapetrou equations. An approximated approach to choice solutions of these equations which describe motions of the particle's proper center of mass is developed.

Taishi Katsuragawa, Shinya Matsuzaki

We explore a new horizon of modified gravity from the viewpoint of the particle physics. As a concrete example, we take the $F(R)$ gravity to raise a question: can a scalar particle ("scalaron") derived from the $F(R)$ gravity be a dark matter candidate? We place the limit on the form of function $F(R)$ from the constraint on the scalaron as a dark matter. The role of the screening mechanism and compatibility with the dark energy problem are addressed.