No Arabic abstract
Modified gravity has garnered interest as a backstop against dark matter and dark energy (DE). As one possible modification, the graviton can become massive, which introduces a new scalar field - here with a Galileon-type symmetry. The field can lead to a nontrivial equation of state (EOS) of DE which is density-and-scale-dependent. Tension between Type Ia supernovae and Planck could be reduced. In voids the scalar field dramatically alters the EOS of DE, induces a soon-observable gravitational slip between the two metric potentials, and develops a topological defect (domain wall) due to a nontrivial vacuum structure for the field.
The immediate observational consequence of a non-trivial spatial topology of the Universe is that an observer could potentially detect multiple images of radiating sources. In particular, a non-trivial topology will generate pairs of correlated circles of temperature fluctuations in the anisotropies maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the so-called circles-in-the-sky. In this way, a detectable non-trivial spatial topology may be seen as an observable attribute, which can be probed through the circles-in-the-sky for all locally homogeneous and isotropic universes with no assumptions on the cosmological dark energy (DE) equation of state (EOS) parameters. We show that the knowledge of the spatial topology through the circles-in-the-sky offers an effective way of reducing the degeneracies in the DE EOS parameters. We concretely illustrate the topological role by assuming, as an exanple, a Poincar{e} dodecahedral space topology and reanalyzing the constraints on the parameters of a specific EOS which arise from the supernovae type Ia, baryon acoustic oscillations and the CMB plus the statistical topological contribution.
The Hubble tension might be resolved by injecting a new energy component, called Early Dark Energy (EDE), prior to recombination. An Anti-de Sitter (AdS) phase around recombination can make the injected energy decay faster, which thus allows a higher EDE fraction (so larger $H_0$) while prevents degrading the CMB fit. In this work, we test the AdS-EDE model with CMB and Large-Scale Structure (LSS) data. Our CMB dataset consists of low-$ell$ part of Planck TT spectrum and SPTpol polarization and lensing measurements, since this dataset predicts the CMB lensing effect consistent with $Lambda$CDM expectation. Combining it with BAO and Pantheon data, we find the bestfit values $H_0=71.92$ km/s/Mpc and $H_0=73.29$ km/s/Mpc without and with the SH0ES prior, respectively. Including cosmic shear and galaxy clusters data, we have $H_0=71.87$ km/s/Mpc and $S_8=0.785$, i.e. only $1.3sigma$ discrepancy with direct $S_8$ measurement.
We use the cosmic shear data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey to place constraints on $f(R)$ and {it Generalized Dilaton} models of modified gravity. This is highly complimentary to other probes since the constraints mainly come from the non-linear scales: maximal deviations with respects to the General-Relativity + $Lambda$CDM scenario occurs at $ksim1 h mbox{Mpc}^{-1}$. At these scales, it becomes necessary to account for known degeneracies with baryon feedback and massive neutrinos, hence we place constraints jointly on these three physical effects. To achieve this, we formulate these modified gravity theories within a common tomographic parameterization, we compute their impact on the clustering properties relative to a GR universe, and propagate the observed modifications into the weak lensing $xi_{pm}$ quantity. Confronted against the cosmic shear data, we reject the $f(R)$ ${ |f_{R_0}|=10^{-4}, n=1}$ model with more than 99.9% confidence interval (CI) when assuming a $Lambda$CDM dark matter only model. In the presence of baryonic feedback processes and massive neutrinos with total mass up to 0.2eV, the model is disfavoured with at least 94% CI in all different combinations studied. Constraints on the ${ |f_{R_0}|=10^{-4}, n=2}$ model are weaker, but nevertheless disfavoured with at least 89% CI. We identify several specific combinations of neutrino mass, baryon feedback and $f(R)$ or Dilaton gravity models that are excluded by the current cosmic shear data. Notably, universes with three massless neutrinos and no baryon feedback are strongly disfavoured in all modified gravity scenarios studied. These results indicate that competitive constraints may be achieved with future cosmic shear data.
Aims: We assess the sensitivity of void shapes to the nature of dark energy that was pointed out in recent studies. We investigate whether or not void shapes are useable as an observational probe in galaxy redshift surveys. We focus on the evolution of the mean void ellipticity and its underlying physical cause. Methods: We analyse the morphological properties of voids in five sets of cosmological N-body simulations, each with a different nature of dark energy. Comparing voids in the dark matter distribution to those in the halo population, we address the question of whether galaxy redshift surveys yield sufficiently accurate void morphologies. Voids are identified using the parameter free Watershed Void Finder. The effect of redshift distortions is investigated as well. Results: We confirm the statistically significant sensitivity of voids in the dark matter distribution. We identify the level of clustering as measured by sigma_8(z) as the main cause of differences in mean void shape <epsilon>. We find that in the halo and/or galaxy distribution it is practically unfeasible to distinguish at a statistically significant level between the various cosmologies due to the sparsity and spatial bias of the sample.
We explore voids in dark matter and halo fields from simulations of $Lambda$CDM and Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ models. In $f(R)$ gravity, dark matter void abundances are greater than that of general relativity (GR). However, when using haloes to identify voids, the differences of void abundances become much smaller, but can still be told apart, in principle, at the 2, 6 and 14 $sigma$ level for the $f(R)$ model parameter amplitudes of $|f_{R0}|=10^{-6}$, $10^{-5}$ and $10^{-4}$. In contrast, the abundance of large voids found using haloes in $f(R)$ gravity is lower than in GR. The more efficient halo formation in underdense regions makes $f(R)$ voids less empty of haloes. This counter intuitive result suggests that voids are not necessarily emptier in $f(R)$ if one looks at galaxies in voids. Indeed, the halo number density profiles of voids are not distinguishable from GR. However, the same $f(R)$ voids are more empty of dark matter. This can in principle be observed by weak gravitational lensing of voids, for which the combination of a spec-$z$ and a photo-$z$ survey over the same sky is necessary. For a volume of 1~(Gpc/$h$)$^3$, neglecting the lensing shape noise, $|f_{R0}|=10^{-5}$ and $10^{-4}$ may be distinguished from GR using the lensing tangential shear signal around voids by 4 and 8$sigma$. The line-of-sight projection of large-scale structure is the main systematics that limits the significance of this signal, limiting the constraining power for $|f_{R0}|=10^{-6}$. The halo void abundance being smaller and the steepening of dark matter void profiles in $f(R)$ models are unique features that can be combined to break the degeneracy between $|f_{R0}|$ and $sigma_8$. The outflow of mass from void centers and velocity dispersions are greater in $f(R)$. Model differences in velocity profiles imply potential powerful constraints of the model in phase space and in redshift space.