The observed accelerated expansion of the Universe may be explained by dark energy or the breakdown of general relativity (GR) on cosmological scales. When the latter case, a modified gravity scenario, is considered, it is often assumed that the background evolution is the same as the $Λ$CDM model but the density perturbation evolves differently. In this paper, we investigate more general classes of modified gravity, where both the background and perturbation evolutions are deviated from those in the $Λ$CDM model. We introduce two phase diagrams, $α{\rm-}fσ_8$ and $H{\rm-}fσ_8$ diagrams; $H$ is the expansion rate, $fσ_8$ is a combination of the growth rate of the Universe and the normalization of the density fluctuation which is directly constrained by redshift-space distortions, and $α$ is a parameter which characterizes the deviation of gravity from GR and can be probed by gravitational lensing. We consider several specific examples of Horndeski's theory, which is a general scalar-tensor theory, and demonstrate how deviations from the $Λ$CDM model appears in the $α{\rm-}fσ_8$ and $H{\rm-}fσ_8$ diagrams. The predicted deviations will be useful for future large-scale structure observations to exclude some of the modified gravity models.
Different regularizations of the Hamiltonian constraint in loop quantum cosmology yield modified loop quantum cosmologies, namely mLQC-I and mLQC-II, which lead to qualitatively different Planck scale physics. We perform a comprehensive analysis of resolution of various singularities in these modified loop cosmologies using effective spacetime description and compare with earlier results in standard loop quantum cosmology. We show that the volume remains non-zero and finite in finite time evolution for all considered loop cosmological models. Interestingly, even though expansion scalar and ene…
We show that bouncing open or flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmologies are inconsistent with worldsheet string theory to first approximation. Specifically, the Virasoro constraint translates to the null energy condition in spacetime at leading order in the alpha-prime expansion. Thus one must go beyond minimally-coupled Einstein gravity in order to find bounce solutions.
We propose a new reconstruction method for scalar--tensor gravity based on the use of conformal transformations. The new method allows the derivation of a set of interesting exact cosmological solutions in brans Dicke gravity as well as other extensions of General Relativity.
The field equations of Brans-Dicke gravity coupled to a mass-varying vector field are derived. Anisotropic cosmological solutions with a locally rotationally symmetric Bianchi type I metric and time-dependent scalar and electric vector fields are studied. A particular class of exact solutions for which all the variable parameters have a power-law time dependence is given. The universe expands with a constant expansion anisotropy within this class of solutions. We show that the accelerating expansion is driven by the scalar field and the electric vector field can be interpreted as an anisotropi…
We study evolution of a flat Friedmann-Robertson Walker universe filled with a bulk viscous cosmological fluid in a higher derivative theory of gravity in the presence of time varying gravitational and cosmological constant. Cosmological models admitting both power-law and exponential expansions are explored here in the presence of imperfect fluid described by full Israel and Stewart theory. We note some new and interesting cosmological solutions relevant for model building including present accelerating phase. In the case of power law, it is found that gravitational constant increases as the …
We investigate the realization of two bouncing paradigms, namely of the superbounce and the loop quantum cosmological ekpyrosis, in the framework of various modified gravities. In particular, we focus on the $F(R)$, $F(G)$ and $F(T)$ gravities, and we reconstruct their specific subclasses which lead to such universe evolutions. These subclasses constitute from power laws, polynomials, or hypergeometric ansatzes, which can be approximated by power laws. The qualitative similarity of different effective gravities which realize the above two bouncing cosmologies, indicates to some universality ly…
Adopting Noether point symmetries, we classify and integrate dynamical systems coming from Horndeski cosmologies. The method is particularly effective both to select the form of Horndeski models and to derive exact cosmological solutions. Starting from the Lagrangians selected by the Noether symmetries, it is possible to derive several modified theories of gravity like $f(R)$ gravity, Brans-Dicke gravity, string inspired gravity and so on. In any case, exact solutions are found out.
The Modified Chaplygin Gas (MCG) model belongs to the class of a unified models of dark energy (DE) and dark matter (DM). It is characterized by an equation of state (EoS) $p_c = Bρ- A/ρ^α$, where the case $B=0$ corresponds to the Generalized Chaplygin Gas (GCG) model. Using a perturbative analysis and power spectrum observational data we show that the MCG model is not a sucessful candidate for the cosmic medium unless $B=0$. In this case, it reduces to the usual GCG model.
We discuss the production and evolution of cosmological gravitons showing how the cosmological background affects their dynamics. Besides, the detection of cosmological gravitons could constitute an extremely important signature to discriminate among different cosmological models. Here we consider the cases of scalar-tensor gravity and $f(R)$ gravity where it is demonstrated the amplification of graviton amplitude changes if compared with General Relativity. Possible observational constraints are discussed.
A novel analytical method for f(R) modified theories without matter in Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker spacetimes is introduced. The equation of motion for the scale factor in terms of cosmic time is reduced to the equation for the evolution of the Ricci scalar R with the Hubble parameter H. The solution of equation of motion for actions of the form of power law in Ricci scalar R, is presented with a detailed elaboration of the action quadratic in R. The reverse use of the introduced method is exemplified in finding functional forms f(R) which lead to specified scale factor functions. The …
To explain the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux with energies $\sim PeV$ recently observed by IceCube collaboration and the relic abundance of DM in the Universe, we consider the minimal 4-dimensional operator $\sim y_{αχ}\overline{L_{L_α}}\, H\, χ$. The cosmological background is assumed to evolve according to $f({\cal T})$ cosmology, where ${\cal T}$ is the scalar torsion.
We study the evolution of spatially flat Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universe for chaotic and Starobinsky potentials in the framework of modified loop quantum cosmologies. These models result in a non-singular bounce as in loop quantum cosmology, but with far more complex modified Friedmann dynamics with higher order than quadratic terms in energy density. For the kinetic energy dominated bounce, we obtain analytical solutions using different approximations and compare with numerical evolution for various physical variables. The relative error turns out to be less than $0.3\%$ in the b…
The gravitino problem is investigated in the framework of Extended Gravity cosmologies. In particular, we consider $f(R)$ gravity, the most natural extension of the Hilbert-Einstein action, and $f(\cal T)$ gravity, the extension of teleparallel equivalent gravity. Since in these theories the expansion laws of the Universe are modified, as compared to the standard $Λ$CDM cosmology, it follows that also the thermal history of particles gets modified. We show that $f(R)$ models allow to avoid the late abundance of gravitinos. In particular, we found that for an appropriate choice of the parameter…
Testing a subset of viable cosmological models beyond General Relativity (GR), with implications for cosmic acceleration and the Dark Energy associated with it, is within the reach of Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) and a part of its endeavor. Deviations from GR-w(z)CDM models can manifest in the growth rate of structure and lensing, as well as in screening effects on non-linear scales. We explore the constraining power of small-scale deviations predicted by the f(R) Hu-Sawicki Modified Gravity (MG) candidate, by emulating this model with COLA (COmoving Lagrangian Acce…
If the accelerated expansion of the universe is due to a modification of general relativity at late times, it is likely that the growth of structure on large scales would also display deviations from the standard cosmology. We investigate the statistics of the distribution of galaxy cluster-sized halos as a probe of gravity. We analyze the output of several matched N-body simulations with the same initial conditions and expansion histories but using both DGP and f (R) gravity with various parameters. From each simulation we extract the cluster mass function, power spectrum, and mean pairwise v…
Cyclic universes with bouncing solutions are candidates for solving the big bang initial singularity problem. Here we seek bouncing solutions in a modified Gauss-Bonnet gravity theory, of the type $R+f(G)$, where $R$ is the Ricci scalar, $G$ is the Gauss-Bonnet term, and $f$ some function of it. In finding such a bouncing solution we resort to a technique that reduces the order of the differential equations of the $R+f(G)$ theory to second order equations. As general relativity is a theory whose equations are of second order, this order reduction technique enables one to find solutions which a…
We study the observational viability of coupled quintessence models with their expansion and growth histories matched to modified gravity cosmologies. We find that for a Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati model which has been fitted to observations, the matched interacting dark energy models are observationally disfavoured. We also study the distinguishability of interacting dark energy models matched to scalar-tensor theory cosmologies and show that it is not always possible to find a physical interacting dark energy model which shares their expansion and growth histories.
We implement an adaptation of the COLA approach, a hybrid scheme that combines Lagrangian perturbation theory with an N-body approach, to model non-linear collapse in chameleon and symmetron modified gravity models. Gravitational screening is modeled effectively through the attachment of a suppression factor to the linearized Klein-Gordon equations. The adapted COLA approach is benchmarked, with respect to an N-body code both for the $Λ$CDM scenario and for the modified gravity theories. It is found to perform well in the estimation of the dark matter power spectra, with consistency of 1 % to …
We discuss a mechanism that induces a time-dependent vacuum energy on cosmological scales. It is based on the instability induced renormalization triggered by the low energy quantum fluctuations in a Universe with a positive cosmological constant. We employ the dynamical systems approach to study the qualitative behavior of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmologies where the cosmological constant is dynamically evolving according with this nonperturbative scaling at low energies. It will be shown that it is possible to realize a "two regimes" dark energy phases, where an unstable early phase of p…
In the framework of massive gravity with a de Sitter reference metric, we study homogeneous and isotropic solutions with positive spatial curvature. Remarkably, we find that bounces can occur when cosmological matter satisfies the strong energy condition, in contrast to what happens in classical general relativity. This is due to the presence in the Friedmann equations of additional terms, which depend on the scale factor and its derivatives and can be interpreted as an effective fluid. We present a detailed study of the system using a phase space analysis. After having identified the fixed po…
By the application of the generalized Israel junction conditions we derive cosmological equations for the fourth-order $f(R)$ brane gravity and study their cosmological solutions. We show that there exists a non-static solution which describes a four-dimensional de-Sitter $(dS_4)$ brane embedded in a five-dimensional anti-de-Sitter $(AdS_5)$ bulk for a vanishing Weyl tensor contribution. On the other hand, for the case of a non-vanishing Weyl tensor contribution, there exists a static brane only. We claim that in order to get some more general non-static $f(R)$ brane configurations, one needs …
We study the background cosmology of two extensions of dRGT massive gravity. The first is variable mass massive gravity, where the fixed graviton mass of dRGT is replaced by the expectation value of a scalar field. We ask whether self-inflation can be driven by the self-accelerated branch of this theory, and we find that, while such solutions can exist for a short period, they cannot be sustained for a cosmologically useful time. Furthermore, we demonstrate that there generally exist future curvature singularities of the "big brake" form in cosmological solutions to these theories. The second …
Cosmological N-body simulations are now being performed using Newtonian gravity on scales larger than the Hubble radius. It is well known that a uniformly expanding, homogeneous ball of dust in Newtonian gravity satisfies the same equations as arise in relativistic FLRW cosmology, and it also is known that a correspondence between Newtonian and relativistic dust cosmologies continues to hold in linearized perturbation theory in the marginally bound/spatially flat case. Nevertheless, it is far from obvious that Newtonian gravity can provide a good global description of an inhomogeneous cosmolog…
The present thesis is focused on the study of FLRW cosmology in modified gravities and with scalar fields. The mystery of dark energy has made that the last decade, many efforts in theoretical physics have been focused on the explanation of the current acceleration of the Universe expansion. On the other hand, an early accelerated epoch, known as inflation, is also required in the standard cosmological model in order to fit the observational data. Here, we study the possibility to explain both effects under the same mechanism, by means of scalar fields or modified gravity. In this sense, F(R) …
Alternative cosmologies, based on extensions of General Relativity, predict modified thermal histories in the Early Universe during the pre Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) era, epoch which is not directly constrained by cosmological observations. When the expansion rate is enhanced with respect to the standard case, thermal relics typically decouple with larger relic abundances. The correct value of the relic abundance is therefore obtained for larger annihilation cross--sections, as compared to standard cosmology. A direct consequence is that indirect detection rates are enhanced. Extending pr…
As is known, in modified cosmological theories of gravity many of the cosmologies which could not be generated by standard Einstein gravity, can be consistently described by $F(R)$ theories. Using known reconstruction techniques, we investigate which $F(R)$ theories can lead to a Hubble parameter describing two types of cosmological bounces, the superbounce model, related to supergravity and non-supersymmetric models of contracting ekpyrosis and also the Loop Quantum Cosmology modified ekpyrotic model. Since our method is an approximate method, we investigate the problem at large and small cur…
We show how to derive several families of accelerating universe solutions to an Einstein-Aether gravity theory. These solutions provide possible descriptions of inflationary behaviour in the early universe and late-time cosmological acceleration.
We study the cosmological effects of adding terms of higher-order in the usual energy-momentum tensor to the matter lagrangian of general relativity. This is in contrast to most studies of higher-order gravity which focus on generalising the Einstein-Hilbert curvature contribution to the lagrangian. The resulting cosmological theories include many particular theories, like bulk viscous cosmologies, loop quantum gravity, K-essence, and brane-world cosmologies. We find a range of exact solutions for isotropic universes, discuss their behaviours with reference to the early and late-time evolution…
It has long been known that the covariant formulation of quantum electrodynamics conflicts with the local description of states in the charged sector. Some of the solutions to this problem amount to modifications of the subsidiary conditions below some arbitrarily low photon frequency. Such infrared modified theories have been shown to be equivalent to standard Maxwell electrodynamics with an additional classical electromagnetic current induced by the quantum charges. The induced current only has support for very small frequencies and cancels the effects of the physical charges on large scales…
Cosmological observables show a dependence with the neutrino mass, which is partially degenerate with parameters of extended models of gravity. We study and explore this degeneracy in Horndeski generalized scalar-tensor theories of gravity. Using forecasted cosmic microwave background and galaxy power spectrum datasets, we find that a single parameter in the linear regime of the effective theory dominates the correlation with the total neutrino mass. For any given mass, a particular value of this parameter approximately cancels the power suppression due to the neutrino mass at a given redshift…
We investigate the limits of applicability of the quasi-static approximation in cosmologies featuring general models of dark energy or modified gravity. We show that, at best, the quasi-static approximation breaks down outside of the sound horizon of the dark-energy, rather than the cosmological horizon as is frequently assumed. When the sound speed of dark energy is significantly below that of light, the quasi-static limit is only valid in a limited range of observable scales and this must be taken into account when computing effects on observations in such models. As an order of magnitude es…
Using a Monte Carlo random walks of a log-normal distribution, we show how to qualitatively study void properties for non-standard cosmologies. We apply this method to an f(R) modified gravity model and recover the N-body simulation results of (Achitouv et al. 2016) for the void profiles and their deviation from GR. This method can potentially be extended to study other properties of the large scale structures such as the abundance of voids or overdense environments. We also introduce a new way to identify voids in the cosmic web, using only a few measurements of the density fluctuations aroun…
In this paper, we first provide a brief review of the effective dynamics of two recently well-studied models of modified loop quantum cosmologies (mLQCs), which arise from different regularizations of the Hamiltonian constraint and show the robustness of a generic resolution of the big bang singularity, replaced by a quantum bounce due to non-perturbative Planck scale effects. As in loop quantum cosmology (LQC), in these modified models the slow-roll inflation happens generically. We consider the cosmological perturbations following the dressed and hybrid approaches and clarify some subtle iss…
We present projected constraints on modified gravity models from the observational technique known as 21 cm intensity mapping, where cosmic structure is detected without resolving individual galaxies. The resulting map is sensitive to both BAO and weak lensing, two of the most powerful cosmological probes. It is found that a 200 m x 200 m cylindrical telescope, sensitive out to z=2.5, would be able to distinguish DGP from most dark energy models, and constrain the Hu & Sawicki f(R) model to |f_{R0}| < 9*10^(-6) at 95% confidence. The latter constraint makes extensive use of the lensing spectru…
Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) solutions have traditionally been confined to systems with no pressure in which the gravity is due to massive dust, but the solutions are little changed in form if, as in cosmology, the pressure is uniform in space at each comoving time. This allows the equations of cosmology to be deduced in a manner that more closely resembles classical mechanics. It also gives some inhomogeneous solutions with growing condensations and black holes. We give criteria by which the sizes of different closed models of the universe can be compared and discuss conditions for self-closur…
Non-local gravity cosmologies are considered under the standard of Noether Symmetry Approach. In particular, we focus on non-local theories whose gravitational actions depend on curvature and Gauss-Bonnet scalar invariants. Specific functional forms of the related point-like Lagrangians are selected by Noether symmetries and we solve the corresponding field equations finding out exact cosmological solutions.
Modifications of the equations of general relativity at large distances offer one possibility to explain the observed properties of our Universe without invoking a cosmological constant. Numerous proposals for such modified gravity cosmologies exist, but often their consequences for structure formation in the non-linear sector are not yet accurately known. In this work, we employ high-resolution numerical simulations of f(R)-gravity models coupled with a semi-analytic model (SAM) for galaxy formation to obtain detailed predictions for the evolution of galaxy properties. The f(R)-gravity models…
We analyse the two-point and marked correlation functions of haloes and galaxies in three variants of the chameleon $f(R)$ gravity model using N-body simulations, and compare to a fiducial $Λ$CDM model based on general relativity (GR). Using a halo occupation distribution prescription (HOD) we populate dark matter haloes with galaxies, where the HOD parameters have been tuned such that the galaxy number densities and the real-space galaxy two-point correlation functions in the modified gravity models match those in GR to within $1\sim3\%$. We test the idea that since the behaviour of gravity i…
We investigate the performance of semi-analytical modelling of large-scale structure in Galileon gravity cosmologies using results from N-body simulations. We focus on the Cubic and Quartic Galileon models that provide a reasonable fit to CMB, SNIa and BAO data. We demonstrate that the Sheth-Tormen mass function and linear halo bias can be calibrated to provide a very good fit to our simulation results. We also find that the halo concentration-mass relation is well fitted by a power law. The nonlinear matter power spectrum computed in the halo model approach is found to be inaccurate in the mi…
We present a simple numerical scheme for perturbation theory (PT) calculations of large-scale structure. Solving the evolution equations for perturbations numerically, we construct the PT kernels as building blocks of statistical calculations, from which the power spectrum and/or correlation function can be systematically computed. The scheme is especially applicable to the generalized structure formation including modified gravity, in which the analytic construction of PT kernels is intractable. As an illustration, we show several examples for power spectrum calculations in $f(R)$ gravity and…
We analyze the Extended Quasi-Dilaton Massive Gravity model around a Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker cosmological background. We present a careful stability analysis of asymptotic fixed points. We find that the traditional fixed point cannot be approached dynamically, except from a perfectly fine-tuned initial condition involving both the quasi-dilaton and the Hubble parameter. A less-well examined fixed-point solution, where the time derivative of the 0-th Stückelberg field vanishes $\dotϕ^0=0$, encounters no such difficulty, and the fixed point is an attractor in some finite region of in…
We present a convolutional neural network to classify distinct cosmological scenarios based on the statistically similar weak-lensing maps they generate. Modified gravity (MG) models that include massive neutrinos can mimic the standard concordance model ($Λ$CDM) in terms of Gaussian weak-lensing observables. An inability to distinguish viable models that are based on different physics potentially limits a deeper understanding of the fundamental nature of cosmic acceleration. For a fixed redshift of sources, we demonstrate that a machine learning network trained on simulated convergence maps c…
The discovery by the IceCube experiment of a high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux with energies of the order of PeV, has opened new scenarios in astroparticles physics. A possibility to explain this phenomenon is to consider the minimal models of Dark Matter (DM) decay, the 4-dimensional operator $\sim y_{αχ}\overline{L_{L_α}}\, H\, χ$, which is also able to generate the correct abundance of DM in the Universe. Assuming that the cosmological background evolves according to the standard cosmological model, it follows that the rate of DM decay $Γ_χ\sim |y_{αχ}|^2$ needed to get the correct DM…
We review the accelerating (mainly, dark energy) cosmologies in modified gravity. Special attention is paid to cosmologies leading to finite-time future singularities in $F(R)$, $F(G)$ and $\mathcal{F}(R,G)$ modified gravities. The removal of the finite-time future singularities via addition of $R^2$-term which simultaneously unifies the early-time inflation with late-time acceleration is also briefly mentioned. Accelerating cosmology including the scenario unifying inflation with dark energy is considered in $F(R)$ gravity with Lagrange multipliers. In addition, we examine domain wall solutio…
MG-NECOLA: A Field-Level Emulator for $f(R)$ Gravity and Massive Neutrino Cosmologies
Universidad del Valle（谷大学）；Michigan Technological University（密歇根理工大学）；Università di Bologna（博洛尼亚大学）；INAF, Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna（意大利国家天体物理研究所博洛尼亚天文与空间科学观测站）
In this work, we study FRW cosmologies in the context of gravity rainbow. We discuss the general conditions for having a nonsingular FRW cosmology in gravity rainbow. We propose that gravity rainbow functions can be fixed using two known modified dispersion relation (MDR), which have been proposed in literature. The first MDR was introduced by Amelino-Camelia, et el. in [9] and the second was introduced by Magueijo and Smolin in [24]. Studying these FRW-like cosmologies, after fixing the gravity rainbow functions, leads to nonsingular solutions which can be expressed in exact forms.
We investigate the dependence of the galaxy-halo connection and galaxy density field in modified gravity models using the $N-$body simulations for $f(R)$ and nDGP models at $z=0$. Because of the screening mechanisms employed by these models, chameleon and Vainshtein, halos are clustered differently in the non-linear regime of structure formation. We quantify their deviations in the galaxy density field from the standard $Λ$CDM model under different environments. We populate galaxies in halos via the (Sub)Halo Abundance Matching. Our main results are: 1) The galaxy-halo connection {\it strongly…
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…
We study the halo mass function (HMF) in modified gravity (MG) models using a set of large $N$-body simulations -- the ELEPHANT suite. We consider two popular beyond-general relativity scenarios: the Hu-Sawicki chameleon $f(R)$ model and the normal branch of the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati braneworld (nDGP). We show that in MG, analytic formulation based on the Press-Schechter framework offers a grossly inaccurate description of the HMF. We find, however, that once the HMF is expressed in terms of the dimensionless multiplicity function, it approximately assumes a redshift-independent universal ch…
We investigate the qualitative evolution of (D+1)-dimensional cosmological models in f(R) gravity for the general case of the function f(R). The analysis is specified for various examples, including the (D+1)-dimensional generalization of the Starobinsky model, models with polynomial and exponential functions. The cosmological dynamics are compared in the Einstein and Jordan representations of the corresponding scalar-tensor theory. The features of the cosmological evolution are discussed for Einstein frame potentials taking negative values in certain regions of the field space.
