Teleparallel Robertson-Walker Geometries and Applications

Abstract

In teleparallel geometries, the coframe and corresponding spin connection are the principal geometric objects and, consequently, the appropriate definition of a symmetry is that of an affine symmetry. The set of invariant coframes and their corresponding spin connections that respect the full six dimensional Lie algebra of Robertson–Walker affine symmetries are displayed and discussed. We will refer to such geometries as teleparallel Robertson–Walker (TRW) geometries, where the corresponding derived metric is of Robertson–Walker form and is characterized by the parameter k=(−1,0,1). The field equations are explicitly presented for the F(T) class of teleparallel TRW spacetimes. We are primarily interested in investigating the k≠0 TRW models. After first studying the k=0 models and, in particular, writing their governing field equations in an appropriate form, we then study their late time stability with respect to perturbations in k in both the cases of a vanishing and non-vanishing effective cosmological constant term. As an illustration, we consider both quadratic F(T) theories and power-law solutions.