Conformal aspects of the Palatini approach in extended theories of gravity (Q818869)

In the paper the problem of the equivalence between higher-order non-minimally coupled theories and General Relativity in the Palatini approach is analyzed. The layout of the paper is the following: 1) The conformal transformations through their applications to non-minimally coupled and higher-order theories of gravity is discussed. The goal is to show that starting from the Jordan frame, through a conformal transformation, the system can always be reduced to the Einstein frame, where gravity is minimally coupled to scalar fields. 2) The discussion of conformal transformations in the framework of the Palatini approach. Due to the intrinsic bi-metric structure of such an approach and to the fact that affine connections coincide with the Levi-Civita connection only in the Hilbert-Einstein case, conformal transformations acquire a relevant role in order to study chronological and geodesic structures of spacetime. 3) It is shown that the solutions derived in the different frames could be distinguished by observations. This fact shows that the Einstein frame and the Jordan frame are physically inequivalent since the Palatini field equations are intrinsically different from those derived in standard GR.