Perturbative aspects and conformal solutions of F(R) gravity

We investigate perturbative aspects of gravity with a general F(R) Lagrangian, as well as nonperturbative dilatonic solutions. For the first part, we are interested in stability and the definition of asymptotic charges. The main result of this study is that, while generic F(R) theories are stable under metric perturbations, they are expected to show instabilities against curvature perturbations when the Lagrangian includes 1/R terms. For the second part, one is interested on exact solutions, and we explicitly construct kink-like solutions of the Lionville type for the dilaton field for F(R) having the form R +gamma R-n, in two and in four dimensions. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.