Thick braneworld model in nonmetricity formulation of general relativity and its stability

Abstract: In this paper, we study the thick brane system in the so-called $f(Q)$ gravity, where the gravitational interaction was encoded by the nonmetricity $Q$ like scalar curvature $R$ in general relativity. With a special choice of $f(Q)=Q-b Q^n$, we find that the thick brane system can be solved analytically with the first-order formalism, where the complicated second-order differential equation is transformed to several first-order differential equations. Moreover, the stability of the thick brane system under tensor perturbation is also investigated. It is shown that the tachyonic states are absent and the graviton zero mode can be localized on the brane. Thus, the four-dimensional Newtonian potential can be recovered at low energy. Besides, the corrections of the massive graviton Kaluza-Klein modes to the Newtonian potential are also analyzed briefly.