I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1 briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises the evidence for dark energy. It also provides the observational and theoretical arguments in favour of the cosmological constant as the candidate and emphasises why no other approach really solves the conceptual problems usually attributed to the cosmological constant. Part 2 describes some of the approaches to understand the nature of the cosmological constant and attempts to extract the key ingredients which must be present in any viable solution. I argue that (i)the cosmological constant problem cannot be satisfactorily solved until gravitational action is made invariant under the shift of the matter lagrangian by a constant and (ii) this cannot happen if the metric is the dynamical variable. Hence the cosmological constant problem essentially has to do with our (mis)understanding of the nature of gravity. Part 3 discusses an alternative perspective on gravity in which the action is explicitly invariant under the above transformation. Extremizing this action leads to an equation determining the background geometry which gives Einstein's theory at the lowest order with Lanczos-Lovelock type corrections. (Condensed abstract).
We discuss the relevance of quantum gravity to the frontier questions in high energy phenomenology: the problems of dark matter, dark energy, and vacuum selection as well as the problems of emergent spacetime and wormholes. Dark matter and dark energy phenomenology, and the problem of vacuum selection are discussed within the context of string theory as a model of quantum gravity. Emergent spacetime and wormholes are discussed in a more general context of effective theories of quantum gravity.
We propose gravity, matters and dark energy may be confined on different four dimensional \emph{minimal surfaces} for the observer in five dimensional spacetime. Following this idea, we construct the equations of motion when gravity, matters and dark energy are confined on different minimal surfaces. Then in the background of Friedman-Robertson-Walker universe, we investigate the cosmic evolution when gravity and quintessence are confined on the minimal surfaces.
We propose the Kaluza-Klein inspired Brans-Dicke gravity model containing possible existence of dark matter and dark energy. The massive scalar field coupled with gravity in 5 dimensional spacetime can be reduced to 4 dimensional gravity along with the dilaton $ϕ$, gauge fields $A_μ$, and the tower of scalar fields $η_n$. Two additional gauge fields are introduced to form "Cosmic Triad" vector field scenario. We then use the dynamical system approach to analyze the critical points and their corresponding physical parameters. We found that in the case where only the zero mode of the Kaluza-Klei…
The Ricci dark energy is a model inspired by the holographic dark energy models with the dark energy density being proportional to Ricci scalar curvature. Here this model is studied in the bumblebee gravity theory. It is a gravitational theory that exhibit spontaneous Lorentz symmetry breaking. Then the modified Friedmann equation is solved for two cases. In the first case the coupling constant $ξ$ is equal to zero. And in the second case a solution in the vacuum, where the bumblebee field becomes a constant that minimizes the potential, is considered. The coupling constant controls the intera…
We show that quantum gravity, whatever its ultra-violet completion might be, could account for dark matter. Indeed, besides the massless gravitational field recently observed in the form of gravitational waves, the spectrum of quantum gravity contains two massive fields respectively of spin 2 and spin 0. If these fields are long-lived, they could easily account for dark matter. In that case, dark matter would be very light and only gravitationally coupled to the standard model particles.
We investigate a cosmological scenario by finding solutions using first-order formalism in the Horndeski gravity that constrains the superpotential and implies that no free choice of scalar potential is allowed. Despite this we show that a de Sitter phase at late-time cosmology can be realized, where the dark energy sector can be identified. The scalar field equation of state tends to the cosmological scenario at present time and allows us to conclude that it can simulate the dark energy in the Horndeski gravity.
In this paper, we obtain a holographic model of dark energy using the fluid/gravity duality. This model will be dual to a higher dimensional Schwarzschild black hole, and we would use fluid/gravity duality to relate to the parameters of this black hole to such a cosmological model. We will also analyze the thermodynamics of such a solution, and discuss the stability model. Finally, we use cosmological data to constraint the parametric space of this dark energy model. Thus, we will use observational data to perform cosmography for this holographic model based on fluid/gravity duality.
This paper scrutinises the tenability of a strict conceptual distinction between space(time) and matter via the lens of the debate between modified gravity and dark matter. In particular, we consider Berezhiani and Khoury's novel 'superfluid dark matter theory' (SFDM) as a case study. Two families of criteria for being matter and being spacetime, respectively, are extracted from the literature. Evaluation of the new scalar field postulated by SFDM according to these criteria reveals that it is as much (dark) matter as anything could possibly be, but also$-$below the critical temperature for su…
First, we describe the construction of a new type of gravity-matter models based on the formalism of non-Riemannian space-time volume forms - alternative generally covariant integration measure densities (volume elements) defined in terms of auxiliary antisymmetric tensor gauge fields. Here gravity couples in a non-conventional way to two distinct scalar fields providing a unified Lagrangian action principle description of: (i) the evolution of both "early" and "late" Universe - by the "inflaton" scalar field; (ii) dark energy and dark matter as a unified manifestation of a single material ent…
We introduce a novel model of affine gravity, which implements the no-scale scenario. Namely, Planck mass and Hubble constant emerge dynamically, through the mechanism of spontaneous breaking of scale-invariance. Moreover, in our model the time direction and non--degenerate metric emerge dynamically as well. This naturally gives rise to the inflation and may server as a starting point for the "birth" of the Universe. We show that our model is phenomenologically viable, both from the perspective of the direct tests of gravity and cosmological evolution.
In this work we shall demonstrate that it is possible to describe in a unified way a primordial bounce with the dark energy era, in the context of Gauss-Bonnet modified gravity. Particularly, the early time bounce has a nearly scale invariant power spectrum of primordial scalar curvature perturbations, while the dark energy era is a viable one, meaning that it mimics the $Λ$-Cold-Dark-Matter model and also is compatible with the Planck 2018 data on cosmological parameters. In addition, our analysis indicates that the dark energy era is free from dark energy oscillations, which occur in the con…
In this work we study certain classes of $F(R,{\cal G})$ gravity which have appealing phenomenological features, with respect to the successful realization of the dark energy and of the inflationary era. Particularly, we discuss the general formalism and we demonstrate how several inflationary and dark energy evolutions can be described in the context of $F(R,{\cal G})$ gravity. Also we propose a unified model, in the context of which the early and late-time dynamics are controlled by the $F(R,{\cal G})$ gravity, thus producing inflation and the dark energy era, while the intermediate era is a…
We show that Newton's gravitational potential, augmented by a logarithmic term, partly or wholly mitigates the need for dark matter. As a bonus, it also explains why MOND seems to work at galactic scales. We speculate on the origin of such a potential.
The logarithmic $R^2$-corrected $F(R)$ gravity is investigated as a prototype model of modified gravity theories with quantum corrections. By using the auxiliary field method, the model is described by the general relativity with a scalaron field. The scalaron field can be identified as an inflaton at the primordial inflation era. It is also one of the dark matter candidates in the dark energy era. It is found that a wide range of the parameters is consistent with the current observations of CMB fluctuations, dark energy and dark matter.
In this work, we investigate the dynamics of the interacting dark energy and dark matter in viable models of $f(R)$ gravity by using a standard framework of dynamical system analysis. A simple form of the interacting dark energy $Q=3αHρ_{m}$ is used to study three viable models of $f(R)$ gravity which are consistent with local gravity constraints and satisfying conditions for the cosmological viability. As a result, we find that the fixed points are slightly modified from those obtained in the standard non-interacting analysis of $f(R)$ gravity proposed so far in the literature. In our models …
The accelerating expansion of universe can be described by the non-zero cosmological constant or the dark energy. However, the origin of the dark energy remains a mystery of modern physics. The local Lorentz invariance is the most exact symmetry of the Nature on the one hand, but all quantum gravity theories predict Lorentz violation on the other hand. The local Lorentz violation induced by the quantum gravity at the very early universe may be transformed into large scale by inflation. Combining the low-$l$ anomalies of the CMB spectrum, we propose that the local Lorentz invariance may be brok…
We search for an extension of the Standard Model that contains a viable dark matter candidate and that can be embedded into a fundamental, asymptotically safe, quantum field theory with quantum gravity. Demanding asymptotic safety leads to boundary conditions for the non-gravitational couplings at the Planck scale. For a given dark matter model these translate into constraints on the mass of the dark matter candidate. We derive constraints on the dark matter mass and couplings in two minimal dark matter models: i) scalar dark matter coupled via the Higgs-portal in the $B$-$L$ model; ii) fermio…
