Newtonian potential and geodesic completeness in infinite derivative gravity

Recent study has shown that a nonsingular oscillating potential—a feature of infinite derivative gravity theories—matches current experimental data better than the standard General Relativity potential. In this work, we show that this nonsingular oscillating potential can be given by a wider class of theories which allows the defocusing of null rays and therefore geodesic completeness. We consolidate the conditions whereby null geodesic congruences may be made past complete, via the Raychaudhuri equation, with the requirement of a nonsingular Newtonian potential in an infinite derivative gravity theory. In doing so, we examine a class of Newtonian potentials characterized by an additional degree of freedom in the scalar propagator, which returns the familiar potential of General Relativity at large distances.