Investigating new forms of gravity-matter couplings in the gravitational field equations

Abstract: This paper proposes a toy model where, in the Einstein equations, the right-hand side is modified by the addition of a term proportional to the symmetrized partial contraction of the Ricci tensor with the energy-momentum tensor, while the left-hand side remains equal to the Einstein tensor. Bearing in mind the existence of a natural length scale given by the Planck length, dimensional analysis shows that such a term yields a correction linear in h to the classical term, that is instead just proportional to the energy-momentum tensor. One then obtains an effective energy-momentum tensor that consists of three contributions: pure energy part, mechanical stress and thermal part. The pure energy part has the appropriate property for dealing with the dark sector of modern relativistic cosmology. Such a theory coincides with general relativity in vacuum, and the resulting field equations are here solved for a Dunn and Tupper metric, for departures from an interior Schwarzschild solution as well as for a Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker universe.