Dark Energy and Dark Matter like intrinsic curvature in extended gravity. Viability through gravitational waves

Towards the goal to quantize gravity, in this short review we discuss an intermediate step which consists in extending the picture of standard General Relativity by considering Extended Theories of Gravity. In this tapestry, the equations to quantize are not the standard Einstein field equations of General Relativity, but the extended Einstein field equations of such Extended Theories. The traditional relation between mass-energy and space-time curvature, which founds standard General Relativity, results modified in this new picture and, at least at the linearized approximation, variations of the space-time curvature generate the mass-energy. Various problems of the Dark Universe, Dark Energy, Dark Matter and Pioneer anomaly, can be, in principle, solved through this approach, while a definitive endorsement for Extended Theories of Gravity could arrive from the realization of a consistent gravitational wave astronomy. We also discuss the quantization of both mass-energy and space-time curvature in the early Universe by using the process of amplification of vacuum fluctuations which is connected with the primordial production of relic gravitational waves. A future detection of such relic gravitational waves will be an ultimate endorsement for the quantum rather than classical feature of the gravitational interaction.