Accelerating cosmologies from non-local higher-derivative gravity

We study accelerating cosmological solutions of a general class of non-linear gravities which depend oil Gauss-Bonnet and other higher derivative invariants. To achieve this goal a local formulation will) auxiliary scalars for arbitrary higher-derivative non-local gravity is developed. It is demonstrated that non-local Gauss-Bonnet gravity call be reduced, in the local formation, to a model of string-inspired scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. A natural unification, in the theory here developed. of the early-time inflation epoch with a late-time acceleration stage call also be realized. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.