On the way towards a nonsingular gravitational collapse-the properties of the Yang-Mills cosmos

Abstract

Adding gravitational self-interaction to general relativity in an intrinsic way changes drastically the behavior of a physical system under gravitational collapse. In our analysis of this question for homogeneous and isotropic matter distributions we show that (i) theSO(1,3) gauge theory of gravity of the Yang-Mills type has the correct Newtonian limit for the late universe, (ii) it defines intrinsically a dynamical gravitational stressenergy-momentum tensorG T ab , and (iii) negative self-energy always prevents homogeneous and isotropic matter from forming a big-bang singularity; if the present universe disposes of a positive self-energy, pair creation on the eve of the lepton era generates sufficient gravity to stop the fatal collapse.