The Force of Gravity from a Lagrangian containing Inverse Powers of the Ricci Scalar

Abstract

We determine the gravitational response to a diffuse source, in a locally de Sitter background, of a class of theories which modify the Einstein-Hilbert action by adding a term proportional to an inverse power of the Ricci scalar. We find a linearly growing force which is not phenomenologically acceptable.

Comments: 10 pages, LaTeX 2 epsilon, no figures. Minor conceptual changes