Global asymptotic dynamics of cosmological Einsteinian cubic gravity

We investigate the cosmological dynamics of an up to cubic curvature correction to general relativity (GR) known as cosmological Einsteinian cubic gravity, whose vacuum spectrum consists of the graviton exclusively. Its cosmology is well posed as an initial value problem. We are able to uncover the global asymptotic structure of the phase space of this theory. It is revealed that an inflationary, matter-dominated big bang is the global past attractor, which means that inflation is the starting point of any physically meaningful cosmic history. Given that higher-order curvature corrections to GR are assumed to influence the cosmological dynamics at early times-the high energy/large curvature limit-late-time inflation is possible only if one considers a nonvanishing cosmological constant term.