Ever-expanding, Isotropizing, Quadratic Cosmologies
We consider some aspects of the global evolution problem of Hamiltonian homogeneous, anisotropic cosmologies derived from a purely quadratic action functional of the scalar curvature. We show that models can isotropize in the positive asymptotic direction and that quadratic diagonal Bianchi IX models do not recollapse and may be regular initially. Although the global existence and isotropization results we prove hold quite generally, they are applied to specific Bianchi models in an attempt to describe how certain dynamical properties uncommon to the general relativity case, become generic features of these quadratic universes. The question of integrability of the models is also considered. Our results point to the fact that the more general models are not integrable in the sense of Painlevé and for the Bianchi IX case this may be connected to the validity of a BKL oscillatory picture on approach to the singularity in sharp contrast with other higher order gravity theories that contain an Einstein term and show a monotonic evolution towards the initial singularity.