Can background cosmology hold the key for modified gravity tests?

Ceron-Hurtado, Juan; He, Jianhua; Li, Baojiu

Abstract

Modified gravity theories are a popular alternative to dark energy as a possible explanation for the observed accelerating cosmic expansion, and their cosmological tests are currently an active research field. Studies in recent years have been increasingly focused on testing these theories in the nonlinear regime, which is computationally demanding. Here we show that, under certain circumstances, a whole class of theories can be ruled out by using background cosmology alone. This is possible because certain classes of models (i) are fundamentally incapable of producing specific background expansion histories, and (ii) said histories are incompatible with local gravity tests. As an example, we demonstrate that a popular class of models, f(R) gravity, would not be viable if observations suggest even a slight deviation of the background expansion history from that of the ΛCDM paradigm.

Citation

Ceron-Hurtado, J., He, J., & Li, B. (2016). Can background cosmology hold the key for modified gravity tests?. Physical Review D, 94(6), Article 064052. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.94.064052

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 31, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Sep 19, 2016
• Publication Date: Sep 19, 2016
• Deposit Date: Nov 18, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 29, 2016
• Journal: Physical Review D
• Print ISSN: 2470-0010
• Electronic ISSN: 2470-0029
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 94
• Issue: 6
• Article Number: 064052
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.94.064052
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1400576
• Related Public URLs: https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.00532