We derive the most general mimetic scalar-tensor theory assuming a healthy "seed" action and accounting for the constraints on the speed of gravitational-wave propagation arising from the GW170817 event. By analysing linear perturbations around a flat FLRW background in this model, we obtain a suitable form of the Poisson equation, which allows us to calculate the effective gravitational constant felt by "ordinary" matter. By restricting to a minimally coupled model, such an effective gravitational constant is equivalent to that obtained within General Relativity, with cold dark matter plus a perfect fluid dark energy component, with vanishing sound speed. Assuming, further, a $Λ$CDM background, the effective gravitational constant cannot be distinguished from that of the standard $Λ$CDM model, at linear order. For the full non-minimally coupled mimetic gravity model we obtain a non-vanishing gravitational slip and an effective gravitational constant which always differs from that of standard $Λ$CDM.
We show that theories of mimetic gravity can be viewed as degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor (DHOST) theories that admit an extra local (gauge) symmetry in addition to the usual diffeomorphism invariance. We reformulate and classify mimetic theories in this perspective. Using the effective theory of dark energy, recently extended to include DHOST theories, we then investigate the linear perturbations about a homogeneous and isotropic background for all mimetic theories. We also include matter, in the form of a $k$-essence scalar field, and we derive the quadratic action for linear perturbat…
A specific Horndeski scalar-gravity mimetic model is investigated within a FLWR space-time. The mimetic scalar field is implemented via a Lagrangian multiplier, and it is shown that the model has equations of motion formally similar to the original simpler mimetic matter model of Chamseddine-Mukhanov-Vikman. Several exact solutions describing inflation, bounces, future time singularities are presented and discussed.
We propose a novel class of degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor theories as an extension of mimetic gravity. By performing a noninvertible conformal transformation on "seed" scalar-tensor theories which may be nondegenerate, we can generate a large class of theories with at most three physical degrees of freedom. We identify a general seed theory for which this is possible. Cosmological perturbations in these extended mimetic theories are also studied. It is shown that either of tensor or scalar perturbations is plagued with gradient instabilities, except for a special case where the scalar …
We show that very general scalar-tensor theories of gravity (including, e.g., Horndeski models) are generically invariant under disformal transformations. However there is a special subset, when the transformation is not invertible, that yields new equations of motion which are a generalization of the so-called "mimetic" dark matter theory recently introduced by Chamsedinne and Mukhanov. These conclusions hold true irrespective of whether the scalar field in the action of the assumed scalar-tensor theory of gravity is the same or different than the scalar field involved in the transformation. …
In this paper we demonstrate that in the context of mimetic $F(R)$ gravity with Lagrange multiplier, it is possible to realize cosmologies which are compatible with the recent BICEP2/Keck Array data. We provide some characteristic examples for which the predicted scalar to tensor ratio can be quite smaller in comparison to the upper limit imposed by the BICEP2/Keck Array observations.
Recently modified gravitational theories which mimic the behaviour of dark matter, the so-called "Mimetic Dark Matter", have been proposed. We study the consistency of such theories with respect to the absence of ghost instability and propose a new tensor-vector-scalar theory of gravity, which is a generalization of the previous models of mimetic dark matter with additional desirable features. The original model proposed by Chamseddine and Mukhanov [JHEP 1311 (2013) 135, arXiv:1308.5410] is concluded to describe a regular pressureless dust, presuming that we consider only those configurations …
We investigate inflation within $f(R,ϕ)$-theories, where a dynamical scalar field is coupled to gravity. A class of models which can support early-time acceleration with the emerging of an effective cosmological constant at high curvature is studied. The dynamics of the field allow for exit from inflation leading to the correct amount of inflation in agreement with cosmological data. Furthermore, the spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio of the models are carefully analyzed. A generalization of the theory to incorporate dark matter in the context of mimetic gravity, and further extensions …
We combine the unimodular gravity and mimetic gravity theories into a unified theoretical framework, which is proposed to provide a suggestive proposal for a framework that may assist in the discussion and solution search of the cosmological constant problem and of the dark matter issue. After providing the formulation of the unimodular mimetic gravity and investigating all the new features that the vacuum unimodular gravity implies, by using the underlying reconstruction method, we realize some well known cosmological evolutions, with some of these being exotic for the ordinary Einstein-Hilbe…
We study inflationary solution in an extension of mimetic gravity with the higher derivative interactions coupled to gravity. Because of the higher derivative interactions, the setup is free from the ghost and gradient instabilities while it hosts a number of novel properties. The dispersion relation of scalar perturbations develops quartic momentum correction similar to the setup of ghost inflation. Furthermore, the tilt of tensor perturbations can take either signs with a modified consistency relation between the tilt and the amplitude of tensor perturbations. Despite the presence of higher …
Considering as usual that the underlying geometry of our universe is well described by the spatially flat Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker line element, we review how the background of holonomy corrected Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC) could be obtained as a simple modified version of the mimetic gravity. We also analyze the scalar and tensor perturbations of this modified mimetic model, from which we find that at the level of tensor perturbations it is indistinguishable from General Relativity while at the level of scalar perturbations, the modified mimetic model, which has the same backgroun…
Extended $f(R)$ theories of gravity have been investigated from the symmetry point of view. We briefly has been investigated Noether symmetry of two types of extended $f(R)$ theories: $f(R,T)$ theory, in which curvature is coupled non minimally to the trace of energy momentum tensor $T_{μν}$ and mimetic $f (R) $ gravity, a theory with a scalar field degree of freedom, but ghost-free and with internal conformal symmetry. In both cases we write point -like Lagrangian for flat Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) cosmological background in the presence of ordinary matter. We have been shown…
In this paper, we investigate thick branes generated by a scalar field in mimetic gravity theory. By introducing two auxiliary super-potentials, we transform the second-order field equations of the system into a set of first-order equations. With this first-order formalism, several types of analytical thick brane solutions are obtained. Then, tensor and scalar perturbations are analysed. We find that both kinds of perturbations are stable. The effective potentials for the tensor and scalar perturbations are dual to each other. The tensor zero mode can be localized on the brane while the scalar…
In this paper, we demonstrate that a unified description of early and late-time acceleration is possible in the context of mimetic $F(R)$ gravity. We study the inflationary era in detail and demonstrate that it can be realized even in mimetic $F(R)$ gravity where traditional $F(R)$ gravity fails to describe the inflation. By using standard methods we calculated the spectral index of primordial curvature perturbations and the scalar-to-tensor ratio. We use two $F(R)$ gravity models and as it turns out, for both the models under study the observational indices are compatible with both the latest…
In this paper, thick branes generated by mimetic scalar field are investigated. Three typical thick brane models are constructed and the linear tensor and scalar perturbations are analyzed. These branes have different inner structures, some of which are absent in general relativity. For each brane model, the solution is stable under both tensor and scalar perturbations. The tensor zero modes are localized on the branes, while the scalar perturbations do not propagate and they are not localized on the brane. As the branes split into multi sub-branes for specific parameters, the potentials of th…
We perform the Hamiltonian analysis of several mimetic gravity models and compare our results with those obtained previously by different authors. We verify that for healthy mimetic scalar-tensor theories the condition for the corresponding part of the Hamiltonian to be bounded from below is the positive value of the mimetic field energy density $λ$. We show that for mimetic dark matter possessing a shift symmetry the mimetic energy density remains positive in time, provided appropriate boundary conditions are imposed on its initial value, while in models without shift symmetry the positive en…
We show that the scalar field of mimetic gravity could be used to construct diffeomorphism invariant models that reduce to Horava gravity in the synchronous gauge. The gradient of the mimetic field provides a timelike unit vector field that allows to define a projection operator of four-dimensional tensors to three-dimensional spatial tensors. Conversely, it also enables us to write quantities invariant under space diffeomorphisms in fully covariant form without the need to introduce new propagating degrees of freedom.
In this paper, we study non-local $F(R)$-mimetic gravity. We implement mimetic gravity in the framework of non-local $F(R)$-theories of gravity. Given some specific class of models and using a potential on the mimetic field, we investigate some scenarios related to the early-time universe, namely the inflation and the cosmological bounce, compatibly with Einstein's gravity with cold dark matter at the late-time.
In this paper we analyze spherically symmetric static vacuum solutions with various topologies in mimetic gravity. When the Einstein's tensor is different from zero, a new class of solutions different from the Schwarzschild one emerges from the theory. We analyze the feature of the new solutions and we study the planar motion for the spherical case.
We discuss mimetic gravity theories with direct couplings between the curvature and higher derivatives of the scalar field, up to the quintic order, which were proposed to solve the instability problem for linear perturbations around the FLRW background for this kind of models. Restricting to homogeneous scalar field configurations in the action, we derive degeneracy conditions to obtain an effective field theory with three degrees of freedom. However, performing the Hamiltonian analysis for a generic scalar field we show that there are in general four or more degrees of freedom. The discrepan…
We propose a new non-trivial way to combine mimetic dark matter with the mimetic formulation of unimodular gravity. This yields a Weyl-invariant higher-derivative scalar-vector-tensor theory. We demonstrate that on-shell its behavior mimics GR with an additional k-essence scalar. The overall scale of the k-essence arises as an integration constant -- a global degree of freedom. Interestingly, we find that the resulting fluid cannot make transition through ultra-relativistic equation of state. We develop a method to find a mimetic theory corresponding to any eligible k-essence and identify, whi…
We study the stability of a recently proposed model of scalar-field matter called mimetic dark matter or imperfect dark matter. It has been known that mimetic matter with higher derivative terms suffers from gradient instabilities in scalar perturbations. To seek for an instability-free extension of imperfect dark matter, we develop an effective theory of cosmological perturbations subject to the constraint on the scalar field's kinetic term. This is done by using the unifying framework of general scalar-tensor theories based on the ADM formalism. We demonstrate that it is indeed possible to c…
In this paper, we formulate the Mimetic theory of gravity in first-order formalism for differential forms, i.e., the mimetic version of Einstein-Cartan-Kibble-Sciama (ECKS) gravity. We consider different possibilities on how torsion is affected by conformal transformations and discuss how this translates into the interpolation between two different conformal transformations of the spin connection, parameterized with a zero-form parameter $λ$. We prove that regardless of the type of transformation one chooses, in this setting torsion remains as a non-propagating field. We also discuss the conse…
In this work, we extend the bottom-up reconstruction framework of $F(R)$ gravity to other modified gravities, and in particular for $f(ϕ)R$ and mimetic $F(R)$ gravities. We investigate which are the important conditions in order for the method to work, and we study several viable cosmological evolutions, focusing on the inflationary era. Particularly, for the $f(ϕ)R$ theory case, we specify the functional form of the Hubble rate and of the scalar-to-tensor ratio as a function of the $e$-foldings number and accordingly, the rest of the physical quantities and also the slow-roll and the correspo…
We make a perturbative analysis of spatially covariant gravity only respecting spatial symmetries, of which the Lagrangian includes the dynamic lapse function and the coupling term of spatial curvature and extrinsic curvature. We show that the theory propagates 2 scalar degrees of freedom, as long as the kinetic terms are degenerate, it propagates a single scalar mode at the linear order. Then we calculate the scalar and tensor power spectra. Finally, we study cosmological perturbations in mimetic gravity in the presence of spatially covariant gravity. The original spatially covariant theory p…
We revisit the two-field mimetic gravity model with shift symmetries recently proposed in the literature, especially the problems of degrees of freedom and stabilities. We first study the model at the linear cosmological perturbation level by quadratic Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations. We show that there are actually two (instead of one) scalar degrees of freedom in this model in addition to two tensor modes. We then push on the study to the full non-linear level in terms of the Hamiltonian analysis, and confirm our result from the linear perturbation theory. We also consider the case w…
We consider the recently introduced mimetic gravity, which is a Weyl-symmetric extension of the General Relativity and which can play a role of an imperfect fluid-like Dark Matter with a small sound speed. In this paper we discuss in details how this higher- derivative scalar-tensor theory goes beyond the construction by Horndeski, keeping only one scalar degree of freedom on top of two standard graviton polarizations. In particular, we consider representations of the theory in different sets of Weyl-invariant variables and connect this framework to the singular Brans-Dicke theory. Further, we…
The Hamiltonian formulation of Mimetic Gravity is formulated. Although there are two more equations than those of general relativity, these are proved to be the constraint equation and the conservation of energy-momentum tensor. The Poisson brackets are then computed and closure is proved. At the end, Wheeler-DeWitt equation was solved for a homogeneous and isotropic universe. This was done first for a vanishing potential where agreement with the dust case was shown, and then for a constant potential.
We study linear scalar perturbations around a flat FLRW background in mimetic Horndeski gravity. In the absence of matter, we show that the Newtonian potential satisfies a second-order differential equation with no spatial derivatives. This implies that the sound speed for scalar perturbations is exactly zero on this background. We also show that in mimetic $G^3$ theories the sound speed is equally zero. We obtain the equation of motion for the comoving curvature perturbation (first order differential equation) and solve it to find that the comoving curvature perturbation is constant on all sc…
Mimetic gravity is analysed in the framework of some extensions of General Relativity, where a function of the Gauss-Bonnet invariant in four dimensions is considered. By assuming the so-called mimetic condition, the conformal degree of freedom is isolated and a pressureless fluid naturally arises. Then, the complete set of field equations for mimetic Gauss-Bonnet gravity is established and some inflationary models are analysed, for which the corresponding gravitational action is reconstructed. The spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio are obtained and compared with observational bounds fr…
In this paper, we study the structure and gravitational resonances of thick branes generated by a mimetic scalar field in $f(R)$ gravity. We obtain several typical thick brane solutions for $f(R)=R+αR^2$. To study their stability, we analyze the tensor perturbation of the metric. It is shown that any thick brane model with $df/dR>0$ is stable and the graviton zero mode can be localized on the brane for each solution, which indicates that the four-dimensional Newtonian gravity can be restored. The effect of the parameter $α$ on the gravitational resonances is studied. As a brane splits into mul…
In this paper, thick branes generated by the mimetic scalar field with Lagrange multiplier formulation are investigated. We give three typical thick brane background solutions with different asymptotic behaviors and show that all the solutions are stable under tensor perturbations. The effective potentials of the tensor perturbations exhibit as volcano potential, Poöschl-Teller potential, and harmonic oscillator potential for the three background solutions, respectively. All the tensor zero modes (massless gravitons) of the three cases can be localized on the brane. We also calculate the corre…
In this paper we propose and extensively study mimetic $f({\cal G})$ modified gravity models, with various scenarios of cosmological evolution, with or without extra matter fluids. The easiest formulation is based on the use of Lagrange multiplier constraint. In certain versions of this theory, it is possible to realize accelerated expansion of the Universe or even unified evolution which includes inflation with dark energy, and at the same time in the same theoretical framework, dark matter is described by the theory. This is achieved by the re-parametrization of the metric tensor, which intr…
The recent observation of the the gravitational wave event GW170817 and of its electromagnetic counterpart GRB170817A, from a binary neutron star merger, has established that the speed of gravitational waves deviates from the speed of light by less than one part in $10^{15}$. As a consequence, many extensions of General Relativity are inevitably ruled out. Among these we find the most relevant sectors of Horndeski gravity. In its original formulation, mimetic gravity is able to mimic cosmological dark matter, has tensorial perturbations that travel exactly at the speed of light but has vanishi…
We study the first cosmological implications of the mimetic theory of massive gravity recently proposed by Chamseddine and Mukhanov. This is a novel theory of ghost-free massive gravity which additionally contains a mimetic dark matter component. In an echo of other modified gravity theories, there are self-accelerating solutions which contain a ghost instability. In the ghost-free region of parameter space, the effect of the graviton mass on the cosmic expansion history amounts to an effective negative cosmological constant, a radiation component, and a negative curvature term. This allows us…
We study mimetic $F(R)$ gravity with potential and Lagrange multiplier constraint. In the context of these theories, we introduce a reconstruction technique which enables us to realize arbitrary cosmologies, given the Hubble rate and an arbitrarily chosen $F(R)$ gravity. We exemplify our method by realizing cosmologies that are in concordance with current observations (Planck data) and also well known bouncing cosmologies. The attribute of our method is that the $F(R)$ gravity can be arbitrarily chosen, so we can have the appealing features of the mimetic approach combined with the known featu…
The near-simultaneous multi-messenger detection of the gravitational wave (GW) event GW170817 and its optical counterpart, the short $γ$-ray burst GRB170817A, implies that deviations of the GW speed from the speed of light are restricted to being of ${\cal O}(10^{-15})$. In this note, we study the implications of this bound for mimetic gravity and confirm that in the original setting of the theory, GWs propagate at the speed of light, hence ensuring agreement with the recent multi-messenger detection. A higher-order extension of the original mimetic theory, appearing in the low-energy limit of…
It is known that recently proposed model of mimetic gravity can be presented as general relativity with an additional mimetic matter. We discuss a possibility to analogously reformulate the embedding theory, which is the geometrical description of gravity proposed by Regge and Teitelboim, treating it also as general relativity with some additional matter. We propose a form of action which allows to describe this matter in terms of conserved currents. This action turns out to be a generalization of the perfect fluid action, which can be useful in the analysis of the properties of the additional…
Gravitational wave constraints on the Paneitz operator
Leibniz University Hannover（汉诺威莱布尼茨大学）；Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leibniz University Hannover（汉诺威莱布尼茨大学理论物理研究所）；Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Albert Einstein Institute（马克斯·普朗克引力物理学研究所（爱因斯坦研究所））
We consider various forms of action allowing us to describe a perfect fluid in the framework of General Relativity. First we consider a potential motion without pressure. Starting from an action in terms of the current density vector built similarly to the action of a single particle, we build a series of equivalent actions through various changes of variables. The results are then generalized to the cases of motion with vorticity and the presence of pressure. The obtained forms of action are compared to the previously known variants. We discuss the possibilities to use the obtained results to…
Asymptotically free mimetic gravity has been introduced as a proposal for a classical limiting curvature theory with the purpose of singularity resolution. It was found that in a spatially flat universe an initial stage of exponential expansion with graceful exit is a generic consequence, regardless of the matter content. In this work I will analyze linear stability of cosmological perturbations in such a model, considering only the degrees of freedom of pure mimetic gravity. I show that the addition of Hořava-gravity-like higher order spatial curvature terms can lift the gradient instability …
In this paper, we study a theory of gravity called mimetic $f(R, T)$ in the presence of swampland dS conjecture. For this purpose, we introduce several inflation solutions of the Hubble parameter H(N) from $f(R, T)= R+δT$ gravity model, in which R is Ricci scalar, and T denotes the trace of the energy-momentum tensor. Also, $δ$ and $N$ are the free parameter and a number of e-fold, respectively. Then we calculate quantities such as potential, Lagrange multiplier, slow-roll, and some cosmological parameters such as $n_{s}$ and $r$. Then we challenge the mentioned inflationary model from the swa…
We introduce a new Weyl-invariant and generally-covariant vector-tensor theory with higher derivatives. This theory can be induced by extending the mimetic construction to vector fields of conformal weight four. We demonstrate that in gauge-invariant variables this novel theory reduces to the Henneaux-Teitelboim description of the unimodular gravity. Hence, compared with the standard general relativity, our new higher derivative vector-tensor theory has only one new global degree of freedom - the cosmological constant. Finally we discuss potential extensions of this vector-tensor theory.
Inspired by some recent works of Lovelock Brans-Dicke gravity and mimetic gravity, cosmology solutions in extensions of these two modified gravities are investigated. A non-local term is added to the Lovelock Brans-Dicke action and Gauss-Bonnet terms to the mimetic action,correspondingly. De Sitter and power scale factor solutions are then obtained in both theories. They can provide natural new approaches to a more accurate description of the unverse evolution.
Mimetic gravity analysis has been studied as a theory in various types of general relativity extensions, such as mimetic f(R) gravity, mimetic f(R, T) gravity, mimetic f(R, G) gravity, etc., in the literature. This paper presents a set of equations arising from mimetic conditions and studies cosmic inflation with a combination of mimetic f(G) gravity and swampland dS conjectures. We analyze and evaluate these results. Therefore, we first thoroughly introduce the mimetic f(G) gravity and calculate some cosmological parameters such as the scalar spectral index, the tensor-to-scalar ratio, and th…
We consider all degenerate scalar-tensor theories that depend quadratically on second order derivatives of a scalar field, which we have identified in a previous work. These theories, whose degeneracy in general ensures the absence of Ostrogradski instability, include the quartic Horndenski Lagrangian as well as its quartic extension beyond Horndeski, but also other families of Lagrangians. We study how all these theories transform under general conformal-disformal transformations and find that they can be separated into three main classes that are stable under these transformations. This lead…
