A comparison between the Jordan and Einstein frames in Brans-Dicke theories with torsion

Abstract

In recent years, gravitational models motivated by quantum corrections to gravity which introduce higher order terms like \(R^{2}\) or terms in which the Riemann tensor is not symmetric have been studied by several authors in the form of a general Brans-Dicke type model containing the Ricci scalar, the Holst term and the Nieh-Yan invariant. In this paper we focus on the less explored Jordan frame of such theories and in the comparison between both this frame and the Einstein one. Furthermore, we discuss the role of the transformation of the torsion under conformal transformations and show that the transformation proposed in this paper (extended conformal transformation) contains a special case of the projective transformation of the connection used in some of the papers that motivated this work. We discuss the role and advantages of the extended conformal transformation and show that this new approach can have interesting consequences by working with different variables such as the metric and torsion. Moreover, we study the stability of the system via a dynamical analysis in the Jordan frame, this in order to analyze whether or not we have the fixed points that can be later identified as the inflationary attractor and the unstable fixed point where inflation could take place. Finally we study the scale invariant case of the general model in the Jordan frame. We find out that both the scalar spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar ratio are in agreement with the latest Planck results.