Observations are inconsistent with a homogeneous and isotropic universe with ordinary matter and gravity. The universe is far from exact homogeneity and isotropy at late times, and the effect of the non-linear structures has to be quantified before concluding that new physics is needed. We explain how structure formation can lead to accelerated expansion, and discuss a semi-realistic model where the timescale of the change in the expansion rate emerges from the physics of structure formation.
A modified gravity (MOG) theory, that has been successfully fitted to galaxy rotational velocity data, cluster data, the Bullet Cluster 1E0657-56 and cosmological observations, is shown to be in good agreement with the motion of satellite galaxies around host galaxies at distances 50-400 kpc.
The equations that govern the dynamics of the universe in the modified unimodular theory of gravity are derived. We find a mechanism for inflation in the early universe without postulating a false vacuum state during the first $10^{-35}$ seconds after the Big Bang. In addition, we find a natural explanation for the acceleration of the universe without resorting to dark energy.
The Dolgov-Kawasaki instability discovered in the matter sector of the modified gravity scenario incorporating a 1/R correction to Einstein gravity is studied in general f(R) theories. A stability condition is found in the metric version of these theories to help ruling out models that are unviable from the theoretical point of view.
Conditions for the existence and stability of de Sitter space in modified gravity are derived by considering inhomogeneous perturbations in a gauge-invariant formalism. The stability condition coincides with the corresponding condition for stability with respect to homogeneous perturbations, while this is not the case in scalar-tensor gravity. The stability criterion is applied to various modified gravity models of the early and the present universe.
Within the context of modified gravity and dark energy scenarios of the accelerating universe, we study the stability of de Sitter space with respect to inhomogeneous perturbations using a gauge-independent formalism. In modified gravity the stability condition is exactly the same that one obtains from a homogeneous perturbation analysis, while the stability condition in scalar-tensor gravity is more restrictive.
We study the modified theory of gravity in Friedmann Robertson Walker universe composed of several perfect fluids. We consider the power law inflation and determine the equation of state parameters in terms of the parameters of modified gravity's Lagrangian in the early universe. We also discuss briefly the gravitational baryogenesis in this model.
We reexamined the gravitational time delay of light, allowing for various models of modified gravity. We clarify the dependence of the time delay (and induced frequency shift) on modified gravity models and investigate how to distinguish those models, when light propagates in static spherically symmetric spacetimes. Thus experiments by radio signal from spacecrafts at very different distances from Sun and future space-borne laser interferometric detectors could be a probe of modified gravity in the solar system.
Born-Infeld strategy to smooth theories having divergent solutions is applied to teleparallel equivalent of General Relativity. Differing from other theories of modified gravity, modified teleparallelism leads to second order equations, since teleparallel Lagrangian only contains first derivatives of the vierbein. We show that Born-Infeld-modified teleparallelism solves the particle horizon problem in a spatially flat FRW universe by providing an initial exponential expansion without resorting to an inflaton field.
A class of Modified Gravity Models, consisting of inverse powers of linear combination of quadratic curvature invariants, is studied in the full parameter space. We find that singularity-free cosmological solutions, interpolating between an almost-Friedmann universe at Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and an accelerating universe today, exist only in a restricted parameter space. Furthermore, for all parameters of the models, there is an unstable scalar mode of the gravitational field. Therefore we conclude that this class of Modified Gravity Models is not viable.
We show that the recently suggested explanations of cosmic acceleration by the modification of gravity at small curvature suffer violent instabilities and strongly disagree with the known properties of gravitational interactions.
The current accelerated expansion of our universe could be due to an unknown energy component (dark energy) or a modification to general relativity (modified gravity). In the literature, it has been proposed that combining the probes of the cosmic expansion history and growth history can distinguish between dark energy and modified gravity. In this work, without invoking non-trivial dark energy clustering, we show that the possible interaction between dark energy and dark matter could make the interacting dark energy model and the modified gravity model indistinguishable. An explicit example i…
We discuss the modified gravity which may produce the current cosmic aceleration of the universe and eliminates the need for dark energy. It is shown that such models where the action quickly grows with the decrease of the curvature define the FRW universe with the minimal curvature. It is required the infinite time to reach the minimal curvature during the universe evolution. It is demonstrated that quantum effects of conformal fields may strongly suppress the instabilities discovered in modified gravity. We also briefly speculate on the modification of gravity combined with the presence of t…
Dark energy dynamics of the universe can be achieved by equivalent mathematical descriptions taking into account generalized fluid equations of state in General Relativity, scalar-tensor theories or modified F(R) gravity in Einstein or Jordan frames. The corresponding technique transforming equation of state description to scalar-tensor or modified gravity is explicitly presented. We show that such equivalent pictures can be discriminated by matching solutions with data capable of selecting the true physical frame.
In this paper, we investigate and analyze the cosmological dynamics of the universe, with an effect of modified $f(R)$ gravity emerging at cosmological scale. We choose the Einstein frame as a physical frame. We consider phase portraits of the universe at the late time from modified $f(R)$ gravity model. This result gives our universe an acceleration phase expansion without introducing existence of dark energy dominating our universe.
Gravitational lensing in a modified gravity (MOG) is derived and shown to describe lensing without postulating dark matter. The recent data for merging clusters identified with the interacting cluster 1E0657-56 is shown to be consistent with a weak lensing construction based on MOG without exotic dark matter.
We study structure formation in a phenomenological model of modified gravity which interpolates between LambdaCDM and phenomenological DGP-gravity. Generalisation of spherical collapse by using the Birkhoff-theorem along with the modified growth equation shows that the overdensity for spherical collapse delta_c in these models is significantly lowered compared to LambdaCDM, leading to enhanced number densities of massive clusters and enhanced cluster merging rates. We find that delta_c(z) is well fitted by a function of the form delta_c(z) = a - b\exp(-cz). We examine the sensitivity of PLANCK…
In this paper we derive the Modified Friedmann equation in the Palatini formulation of $R^2$ gravity. Then we use it to discuss the problem of whether in Palatini formulation a $R^2$ term can drive an inflation. We show that the Palatini formulation of $R^2$ gravity cannot lead to gravity-driven inflation. If considering no zero radiation and matter energy densities, we show that only under rather restrictive assumption about the radiation and matter energy densities there will be a mild power-law inflation $a\sim t^2$.
In this paper we present preliminary results from cosmological simulations of modified gravity in the dark matter sector. Our results show improvements over standard cold dark matter cosmology. The abundance of low-mass haloes in the modified gravity model fit observations better than the conventional theory, while the differences of the modified density fluctuation power spectrum differs from the standard, $Λ$CDM power spectrum are small enough to make these two models observationally indistinguishable at large scales.
We study the generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG) scenario in a modified gravity approach. That is, we impose that our universe has a pure dust configuration, and allow for a modification of gravity that yields a GCG specific scale factor evolution. Moreover, assuming that this new hypothetical gravity theory obeys a generalization of Birkhoff's law, we determine the Schwarzschild-like metric in this new modified gravity. We also study the large scale structure formation in this model. Both the linear and non-linear growth are studied together with the growth of the velocity fluctuation in the line…
Dynamical mass discrepancies in galaxies have two possible explanations: the existence of large amounts of dark matter or the breakdown of Newtonian gravity. True dark matter halos of galaxies could differ in several respects from apparent halos inferred from misinterpreted modified gravity, and we discuss two observational tests to probe these differences. Modified gravity gives generic, geometrical predictions for the shapes of apparent halos, and also requires that the inferred excess mass strongly correlates with the visible baryonic mass. Thus modified gravity is more easily falsified, bu…
