Over the last years some interest has been gathered by $f(Q)$ theories, which are new candidates to replace Einstein's prescription for gravity. The non-metricity tensor $Q$ allows to put forward the assumption of a free torsionless connection and, consequently, new degrees of freedom in the action are taken into account. This work focuses on a class of $f(Q)$ theories, characterized by the presence of a general power-law term which adds up to the standard (linear in) $Q$ term in the action, and on new cosmological scenarios arising from them. Using the Markov chain Montecarlo method we carry out statistical tests relying upon background data such as Type Ia Supernovae luminosities and direct Hubble data (from cosmic clocks), along with Cosmic Microwave Background shift and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations data. This allows us to perform a multifaceted comparison between these new cosmologies and the (concordance) $Λ$CDM setup. We conclude that, at the current precision level, the best fits of our $f(Q)$ models correspond to values of their specific parameters which make them hardly distinguishable from our General Relativity "échantillon", that is $Λ$CDM.
From theoretical point of view and not being in contradiction with current observational data, the cosmic strings should have fundamentally different origin and are characterized by wide range of energies. The paper is devoted to search for possible cosmological observational tests on superstring theory, among them to identification of observational characteristics to distinguish between cosmological superstring of different types. In the brane-world scenario with an assumption of creation of cosmological superstrings it was obtained the lower limit on the superstring tension as function of de…
In the present work we analyze and compare the information coming from different observational data sets in the context of a sort of f(T) theories. We perform a joint analysis with measurements of the most recent type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO), Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB), Gamma-Ray Bursts data (GRBs) and Hubble parameter observations (OHD) to constraint the only new parameter these theories have. It is shown that when the new combined BAO/CMB parameter is used to put constraints, the result is different from previous works. We also show that whe…
Models where Dark Matter and Dark Energy interact with each other have been proposed to solve the coincidence problem. We review the motivations underlying the need to introduce such interaction, its influence on the background dynamics and how it modifies the evolution of linear perturbations. We test models using the most recent observational data and we find that the interaction is compatible with the current astronomical and cosmological data. Finally, we describe the forthcoming data sets from current and future facilities that are being constructed or designed that will allow a clearer u…
It is known than the inclusion of spatial curvature can modify the evolution of matter perturbations and affect the Large Scale Structure (LSS) formation. We quantify the effects of the non-zero space curvature in terms of LSS formation for a cosmological model with a running vacuum energy density and a warm dark matter component. The evolution of density perturbations and the modified shape of its power spectrum are constructed and analyzed.
In the present work, by the help of the newly released Union2 compilation which consists of 557 Type Ia supernovae (SNIa), we calibrate 109 long Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) with the well-known Amati relation, using the cosmology-independent calibration method proposed by Liang {\it et al.}. We have obtained 59 calibrated high-redshift GRBs which can be used to constrain cosmological models without the circularity problem (we call them ``Hymnium'' GRBs sample for convenience). Then, we consider the joint constraints on 7 cosmological models from the latest observational data, namely, the combinatio…
We implement the method developed in [1] to construct the most general parametrised action for linear cosmological perturbations of bimetric theories of gravity. Specifically, we consider perturbations around a homogeneous and isotropic background, and identify the complete form of the action invariant under diffeomorphism transformations, as well as the number of free parameters characterising this cosmological class of theories. We discuss, in detail, the case without derivative interactions, and compare our results with those found in massive bigravity.
Invertible disformal transformations are a useful tool to investigate ghost-free scalar-tensor theories. By performing a higher-derivative generalization of the invertible disformal transformation on Horndeski theories, we construct a novel class of ghost-free scalar-tensor theories, which we dub generalized disformal Horndeski theories. Specifically, these theories lie beyond the quadratic/cubic DHOST class. We explore cosmological perturbations to identify a subclass where gravitational waves propagate at the speed of light and clarify the conditions for the absence of ghost/gradient instabi…
We investigate the cosmological implications of the recently constructed 5-dimensional braneworld cosmology with gravitating Nambu-Goto matching conditions. Inserting both matter and radiation sectors, we first extract the analytical cosmological solutions. Additionally, we use observational data from Type Ia Supernovae (SNIa) and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), along with requirements of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), in order to impose constraints on the parameters of the model. We find that the scenario at hand is in very good agreement with observations, and thus a small departure fro…
Cosmological models with Lagrange multipliers are appealing because they could explain the behaviour of the dark sector in a unified way. In this work we analyse extensions to the "Dust of Dark Energy model" proposed in arXiv:1003.5751 by including spatial curvature and more general potentials of the scalar field. We perform dynamical system analysis and we determine the evolution of the equation of state parameter as a function of the scale factor. We present observational constraints on this model by using Union2.1 dataset and H(z) data.
We study whether it is possible to design a "classical" spatially flat bouncing cosmology or a static, spherically symmetric asymptotically flat Lorentzian wormhole in cubic Galileon theories interacting with an extra scalar field. We show that bouncing models are always plagued with gradient instabilities, while there are always ghosts in wormhole backgrounds.
We consider the evolution of cosmological gravitational waves in scalar-tensor theory and $F(R)$ gravity theory as typical models of the modified gravity. Although the propagation speed is not changed from the speed of light, the propagation phase changes when we compare the propagation in these modified gravity theories with the propagation in the $Λ$CDM model. The phase change might be detected in future observations.
In this note cosmological models coming out of the String Field Theory (SFT) in application to the Dark Energy are reviewed. A way of constructing solutions in the case of linear models is outlined, cosmological perturbations and observational evidences of such models are explored. We explicitly demonstrate the stability of the system at the linear order in the most typical configuration.
We investigate the running cosmological constant model with dark energy linearly proportional to the Hubble parameter, $Λ= σH + Λ_0$, in which the $Λ$CDM limit is recovered by taking $σ=0$. We derive the linear perturbation equations of gravity under the Friedmann-Lemaïtre-Robertson-Walker cosmology, and show the power spectra of the CMB temperature and matter density distribution. By using the Markov chain Monte Carlo method, we fit the model to the current observational data and find that $σH_0/ Λ_0 \lesssim 2.63 \times 10^{-2}$ and $6.74 \times 10^{-2}$ for $Λ(t)$ coupled to matter and radi…
k-essence scalar field models are usually taken to have lagrangians of the form ${\mathcal L}=-V(ϕ)F(X)$ with $F$ some general function of $X=\nabla_μϕ\nabla^μϕ$. Under certain conditions this lagrangian in the context of the early universe can take the form of that of an oscillator with time dependent frequency. The Ermakov invariant for a time dependent oscillator in a cosmological scenario then leads to an invariant quadratic form involving the Hubble parameter and the logarithm of the scale factor. In principle, this invariant can lead to further observational probes for the early universe…
We consider the effects of entanglement in the initial quantum state of scalar and tensor fluctuations during inflation. We allow the gauge-invariant scalar and tensor fluctuations to be entangled in the initial state and compute modifications to the various cosmological power spectra. We compute the angular power spectra ($C_l$'s) for some specific cases of our entangled state and discuss what signals one might expect to find in CMB data. This entanglement also can break rotational invariance, allowing for the possibility that some of the large scale anomalies in the CMB power spectrum might …
The next generation of surveys will greatly improve our knowledge of cosmological gravity. In this paper we focus on how Stage IV photometric redshift surveys, including weak lensing and multiple tracers of the matter distribution and radio experiments combined with measurements of the cosmic microwave background will lead to precision constraints on deviations from General Relativity. We use a broad subclass of Horndeski scalar-tensor theories to forecast the accuracy with which we will be able to determine these deviations and their degeneracies with other cosmological parameters. Our analys…
A parametric reconstruction of the jerk parameter, the third order derivative of the scale factor expressed in a dimensionless way, has been discussed. Observational constraints on the model parameters have been obtained by Maximum Likelihood Analysis of the models using Supernova Distance Modulus data (SNe), Observational Hubble Data (OHD), Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) data and CMB shift parameter data (CMBShift). The present value of the jerk parameter has been kept open to start with, but the plots of various cosmological parameter like deceleration parameter $q(z)$, jerk parameter $j(…
Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications and Remote Sensing, National Observatory of Athens（雅典国家天文台天文学、天体物理学、空间应用与遥感研究所）；Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad Católica del Norte（北天主教学院数学系）；CAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学院星系与宇宙学重点实验室，中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院）
We present a method for parametrizing linear cosmological perturbations of theories of gravity, around homogeneous and isotropic backgrounds. The method is sufficiently general and systematic that it can be applied to theories with any degrees of freedom (DoFs) and arbitrary gauge symmetries. In this paper, we focus on scalar-tensor and vector-tensor theories, invariant under linear coordinate transformations. In the case of scalar-tensor theories, we use our framework to recover the simple parametrizations of linearized Horndeski and "Beyond Horndeski" theories, and also find higher-derivativ…
In this paper, we examine the cosmological viability of a light mass galileon field consistent with local gravity constraints. The minimal, L_3=\Boxϕ(\partial_μϕ)^2, massless galileon field requires an additional term in order to give rise to a viable ghost free late time acceleration of Universe. The desired cosmological dynamics can either be achieved by incorporating an additional terms in the action such as (L_4,L_5) - the higher order galileon Lagrangians or by considering a light mass field a la galileon field potential. We analyse the second possibility and find that: (1) The model prod…
We obtain the general cosmological evolution equations for a classically consistent theory of bimetric gravity. Their analytic solutions are demonstrated to generically allow for a cosmic evolution starting out from a matter dominated FLRW universe while relaxing towards a de Sitter (anti-de Sitter) phase at late cosmic time. In particular, we examine a subclass of models which contain solutions that are able to reproduce the expansion history of the cosmic concordance model inspite of the nonlinear couplings of the two metrics. This is demonstrated explicitly by fitting these models to observ…
Observations conducted over the last few decades show that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. In the standard model of cosmology, this accelerated expansion is attributed to a dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant. It is conceivable, however, for the dark energy to exhibit mild dynamics (so that its energy density changes with time rather than having a constant value), or for the accelerated expansion of the Universe to be caused by some mechanism other than dark energy. In this work I will investigate both of these possibilities by using observational data to place co…
We study the late cosmological evolution, from the nonrelativistic matter dominated era to the dark energy era, in modified gravity models described by Degenerate Higher-Order Scalar-Tensor (DHOST) theories. They represent the most general scalar-tensor theories propagating a single scalar degree of freedom and include Horndeski and Beyond Horndeski theories. We provide the homogeneous evolution equations for any quadratic DHOST theory, without restricting ourselves to theories where the speed of gravitational waves coincides with that of light since the present constraints apply to wavelength…
Along this review, we focus on the study of several properties of modified gravity theories, in particular on black-hole solutions and its comparison with those solutions in General Relativity, and on Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metrics. The thermodynamical properties of fourth order gravity theories are also a subject of this investigation with special attention on local and global stability of paradigmatic f(R) models. In addition, we revise some attempts to extend the Cardy-Verlinde formula, including modified gravity, where a relation between entropy bounds is obtained. Moreover, a…
We present new cosmological parameter constraints for general Horndeski scalar-tensor theories, using CMB, redshift space distortion, matter power spectrum and BAO measurements from the Planck, SDSS/BOSS and 6dF surveys. We focus on theories with cosmological gravitational waves propagating at the speed of light, $c_{\rm GW} = c$, implementing and discussing several previously unaccounted for aspects in the constraint derivation for such theories, that qualitatively affect the resulting constraints. In order to ensure our conclusions are robust, we compare results for three different parametri…
One of the greatest problems of standard cosmology is the Big Bang singularity. Previously it has been shown that non-local ghostfree higher-derivative modifications of Einstein gravity in the ultra-violet regime can admit non-singular bouncing solutions. In this paper we study in more details the dynamical properties of the equations of motion for these theories of gravity in presence of positive and negative cosmological constants and radiation. We find stable inflationary attractor solutions in the presence of a positive cosmological constant which renders inflation {\it geodesically comple…
We construct gravitational modifications that go beyond Horndeski, namely theories with extended nonminimal derivative couplings, in which the coefficient functions depend not only on the scalar field but also on its kinetic energy. Such theories prove to be ghost-free in a cosmological background. We investigate the early-time cosmology and show that a de Sitter inflationary phase can be realized as a pure result of the novel gravitational couplings. Additionally, we study the late-time evolution, where we obtain an effective dark energy sector which arises from the scalar field and its exten…
Nowadays, $f(R)$ theory has been one of the leading modified gravity theories to explain the current accelerated expansion of the universe, without invoking dark energy. It is of interest to find the exact cosmological solutions of $f(R)$ theories. Besides other methods, symmetry has been proved as a powerful tool to find exact solutions. On the other hand, symmetry might hint the deep physical structure of a theory, and hence considering symmetry is also well motivated. As is well known, Noether symmetry has been extensively used in physics. Recently, the so-called Hojman symmetry was also co…
We investigate the radiative stability of Horndeski scalar-tensor theories with luminally propagating gravitational waves (as extensively discussed in the wake of GW170817) and show that in general there is a tension between obtaining observable deviations from General Relativity (GR) in cosmology and the requirement of radiative stability. Using this as a constraint, we discuss the subsets of theories that are capable of evading this conclusion and yielding observable, radiatively stable departures from GR. We find several classes of theories that can do so, recovering known cases and identif…
We study the cosmological predictions of two recently proposed non-local modifications of General Relativity. Both models have the same number of parameters as $Λ$CDM, with a mass parameter $m$ replacing the cosmological constant. We implement the cosmological perturbations of the non-local models into a modification of the CLASS Boltzmann code, and we make a full comparison to CMB, BAO and supernova data. We find that the non-local models fit these datasets as well as $Λ$CDM. For both non-local models parameter estimation using Planck+JLA+BAO data gives a value of $H_0$ higher than in $Λ$CDM,…
We constrain two non-flat time-evolving dark energy cosmological models by using Hubble parameter data, Type Ia supernova apparent magnitude measurements, and baryonic acoustic oscillation peak length scale observations. The inclusion of space curvature as a free parameter in the analysis results in a significant broadening of the allowed range of values of the parameter that governs the time evolution of the dark energy density in these models. While consistent with the "standard" spatially-flat $Λ$CDM cosmological model, these data are also consistent with a range of mildly non-flat, slowly …
The conditions for the existence and stability of cosmological power-law scaling solutions are established when the Einstein-Hilbert action is modified by the inclusion of a function of the Gauss-Bonnet curvature invariant. The general form of the action that leads to such solutions is determined for the case where the universe is sourced by a barotropic perfect fluid. It is shown by employing an equivalence between the Gauss-Bonnet action and a scalar-tensor theory of gravity that the cosmological field equations can be written as a plane autonomous system. It is found that stable scaling sol…
In the paper, we consider two models in which dark energy is coupled with either dust matter or dark matter, and discuss the conditions that allow more time for structure formation to take place at high redshifts. These models are expected to have a larger age of the universe than that of $Λ$CDM [universe consists of cold dark matter (CDM) and dark energy (a cosmological constant, $Λ$)], so it can explain the formation of high redshift gravitationally bound systems which the $Λ$CDM model cannot interpret. We use the observational Hubble parameter data (OHD) and Hubble parameter obtained from c…
Recently a new kind of quintessential inflation coming from the Lorentzian distribution has been introduced in [1,2]. The model leads to a very simple potential, which basically depends on two parameters, belonging to the class of $α$-attractors and depicting correctly the early and late time accelerations of our universe. The potential emphasizes a {\it cosmological seesaw mechanism} (CSSM) that produces a large inflationary vacuum energy in one side of the potential and a very small value of dark energy on the right hand side of the potential. {Here we show that the model agrees with the rec…
Cosmological Gravitational Waves (GWs) are usually associated with the transverse-traceless part of the metric perturbations in the context of the theory of cosmological perturbations. These modes are just the usual polarizations `+' and `x' which appear in the general relativity theory. However, in the majority of the alternative theories of gravity, GWs can present more than these two polarization states. In this context, the Newman-Penrose formalism is particularly suitable for evaluating the number of non-null GW modes. In the present work we intend to take into account these extra polariz…
We consider the holographic Friedman-Robertson-Walker (hFRW) universe on the 4-dimensional membrane embedded in the 5-dimensional bulk spacetime and fit the parameters with the observational data. In order to fully account for the phenomenology of this scenario, we consider the models with the brane cosmological constant and the negative bulk cosmological constant. The contribution from the bulk is represented as the holographic dark fluid on the membrane. We derive the universal modified Friedmann equation by including all of these effects in both braneworld and holographic cutoff approaches.…
It has been proposed that the observed dark energy can be explained away by the effect of large-scale nonlinear inhomogeneities. In the present paper we discuss how observations constrain cosmological models featuring large voids. We start by considering Copernican models, in which the observer is not occupying a special position and homogeneity is preserved on a very large scale. We show how these models, at least in their current realizations, are constrained to give small, but perhaps not negligible in certain contexts, corrections to the cosmological observables. We then examine non-Copern…
We apply the holographic principle in the cosmological context through the nonadditive Tsallis entropy, used to describe the thermodynamic properties of nonstandard statistical systems such as the gravitational ones. Assuming the future event horizon as the infrared cutoff, we build a dark energy model free from cosmological inconsistencies, which includes standard thermodynamics and standard holographic dark energy as a limiting case. We thus describe the dynamics of Tsallis holographic dark energy in a flat FLRW background. Hence, we investigate cosmological perturbations in the linear regim…
In this paper, we carry out a study of viable cosmological models in $f(R)$-gravity at the background level. We use observable parameters like $Ω$ and $γ$ to form autonomous system of equations and show that the models under consideration exhibit two different regimes in their time evolution, namely, a phantom phase followed by a quintessence like behavior. We employ statefinder parameters to emphasize a characteristic discriminative signature of these models.
In this work we consider a family of cosmological models featuring future singularities. This type of cosmological evolution is typical of dark energy models with an equation of state violating some of the standard energy conditions (e.g. the null energy condition). Such kind of behavior, widely studied in the literature, may arise in cosmologies with phantom fields, theories of modified gravity or models with interacting dark matter/dark energy. We briefly review the physical consequences of these cosmological evolution regarding geodesic completeness and the divergence of tidal forces in ord…
Modified gravity has attracted much attention over the last few years and remains a potential candidate for dark energy. In particular, the so-called viable f(R) gravity theories, which are able to both recover General Relativity (GR) and produce late-time cosmic acceleration, have been widely studied in recent literature. Nevertheless, extended theories of gravity suffer from several shortcomings which compromise their ability to provide realistic alternatives to the standard cosmological Lambda CDM Concordance model. We address the existence of cosmological singularities and the conditions t…
In the framework of renormalization-group improved cosmologies, we analyze both theoretically and observationally the exact and general solution of the matter-dominated cosmological equations, using the expression of Λ= Λ(G) already determined by the integration method employed in a previous paper. A rough comparison between such a model and the concordance \LambdaCDM model as to the magnitude-redshift relationship has been already done, without showing any appreciable differences. We here perform a more refined study of how astrophysical data (Union2 set) on type-I supernovae, gamma ray burst…
Recently we have derived a set of mapping relations that enables the reconstruction of the family of Horndeski scalar-tensor theories which reproduce the background dynamics and linear perturbations of a given set of effective field theory of dark energy coefficients. In this paper we present a number of applications of this reconstruction. We examine the form of the underlying theories behind different phenomenological parameterizations of modified gravity and dark energy used in the literature, as well as examine theories that exhibit weak gravity, linear shielding, and minimal self-accelera…
In this paper we investigate a class of phenomenologically viable $F(R,{\cal G})$ theories that are able to avoid the cosmological constant issue. While the absence of ghosts and other kinds of instability issues is of prime importance, other reasonable requirements such as vanishing effective (low curvature) cosmological constant, including the flat space as a stable vacuum solution, are also imposed on the viable models. These are free of the cosmological constant problem thanks to the following outstanding feature: the de Sitter space is an attractor of the asymptotic cosmological dynamics,…
We confront dark energy models which are currently similar to $Λ$CDM theory with observational data which include the SNe data, matter density perturbations and baryon acoustic oscillations data. DE cosmology under consideration may evolve to Big Rip, type II or type III future singularity, or to Little Rip or Pseudo-Rip universe. It is shown that matter perturbations data define more precisely the possible deviation from $Λ$CDM model than consideration of SNe data only. The combined data analysis proves that DE models under consideration are as consistent as $Λ$CDM model. We demonstrate that …
Galactic accretion interacts in complex ways with gaseous halos, including galactic winds. As a result, observational diagnostics typically probe a range of intertwined physical phenomena. Because of this complexity, cosmological hydrodynamic simulations have played a key role in developing observational diagnostics of galactic accretion. In this chapter, we review the status of different observational diagnostics of circumgalactic gas flows, in both absorption (galaxy pair and down-the-barrel observations in neutral hydrogen and metals; kinematic and azimuthal angle diagnostics; the cosmologi…
A recently proposed Dynamical Space-time Cosmology (DSC) that unifies dark energy and dark matter is studied. The general action of this scenario includes a Lagrange multiplier, which is coupled to the energy momentum tensor and a scalar field which is different from quintessence. First for various types of potentials we implement a critical point analysis and we find solutions which lead to cosmic acceleration and under certain conditions to stable late-time attractors. Then the DSC cosmology is confronted with the latest cosmological data from low-redshift probes, namely measurements of the …
Theories of gravity for which gravitons can be treated as massive particles have presently been studied as realistic modifications of General Relativity, and can be tested with cosmological observations. In this work, we study the ability of a recently proposed theory with massive gravitons, the so-called Visser theory, to explain the measurements of luminosity distance from the Union2 compilation, the most recent Type-Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) dataset, adopting the current ratio of the total density of non-relativistic matter to the critical density ($Ω_m$) as a free parameter. We also combine t…
We consider different observational effects to test modified gravity approach involving the cosmological constant in the common description of the dark matter and the dark energy. We obtain upper limits for the cosmological constant by studying the scaling relations for 12 nearby galaxy clusters, the radiated power from gravitational waves and the Tully-Fisher relation for super spiral galaxies. Our estimations reveal that, for all these cases the upper limits for $Λ$ are consistent with its actual value predicted by the cosmological observations.
Cosmological Observational Tests in the JWST Era. II: The Tolman Test
Institute of Astronomy of RAS（俄罗斯科学院天文研究所）；Special Astrophysical Observatory of RAS（俄罗斯科学院特别天文台）；Saint Petersburg Branch of the Special Astrophysical Observatory of RAS（俄罗斯科学院特别天文台圣彼得堡分院）；Main Astronomical Observatory of RAS（俄罗斯科学院主天文台）；Saint Petersburg State University（圣彼得堡国立大学）；Saint Petersburg State Marine Technical University（圣彼得堡国立海事技术大学）
We constrain the contribution of tensor-mode perturbations with free $n_t$ in the models with dynamical dark energy with the barotropic equation of state using Planck-2015 data on CMB anisotropy, polarization and lensing, BICEP2/Keck Array data on B-mode polarization, power spectrum of galaxies from WiggleZ and SN Ia data from the JLA compilation. We also investigate the uncertainties of reconstructed potential of the scalar field dark energy.
