No Arabic abstract
Modified theories of gravity provide us with a unique opportunity to generate innovative tests of gravity. In Chameleon f(R) gravity, the gravitational potential differs from the weak-field limit of general relativity (GR) in a mass dependent way. We develop a probe of gravity which compares high mass clusters, where Chameleon effects are weak, to low mass clusters, where the effects can be strong. We utilize the escape velocity edges in the radius/velocity phase space to infer the gravitational potential profiles on scales of 0.3-1 virial radii. We show that the escape edges of low mass clusters are enhanced compared to GR, where the magnitude of the difference depends on the background field value |fR0|. We validate our probe using N-body simulations and simulated light cone galaxy data. For a DESI (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument) Bright Galaxy Sample, including observational systematics, projection effects, and cosmic variance, our test can differentiate between GR and Chameleon f(R) gravity models, |fR0| = 4e-6 (2e-6) at > 5{sigma} (> 2{sigma}), more than an order of magnitude better than current cluster-scale constraints.
We present measurements of the spatial clustering statistics in redshift space of various scalar field modified gravity simulations. We utilise the two-point and the three-point correlation functions to quantify the spatial distribution of dark matter halos within these simulations and thus discern between the models. We compare $Lambda$CDM simulations to various modified gravity scenarios and find consistency with previous work in terms of 2-point statistics in real and redshift-space. However using higher order statistics such as the three-point correlation function in redshift space we find significant deviations from $Lambda$CDM hinting that higher order statistics may prove to be a useful tool in the hunt for deviations from General Relativity.
Cosmic voids in the large-scale structure of the Universe affect the peculiar motions of objects in their vicinity. Although these motions are difficult to observe directly, the clustering pattern of their surrounding tracers in redshift space is influenced in a unique way. This allows to investigate the interplay between densities and velocities around voids, which is solely dictated by the laws of gravity. With the help of $N$-body simulations and derived mock-galaxy catalogs we calculate the average density fluctuations around voids identified with a watershed algorithm in redshift space and compare the results with the expectation from general relativity and the $Lambda$CDM model. We find linear theory to work remarkably well in describing the dynamics of voids. Adopting a Bayesian inference framework, we explore the full posterior of our model parameters and forecast the achievable accuracy on measurements of the growth rate of structure and the geometric distortion through the Alcock-Paczynski effect. Systematic errors in the latter are reduced from $sim15%$ to $sim5%$ when peculiar velocities are taken into account. The relative parameter uncertainties in galaxy surveys with number densities comparable to the SDSS MAIN (CMASS) sample probing a volume of $1h^{-3}{rm Gpc}^3$ yield $sigma_{f/b}left/(f/b)right.sim2%$ ($20%$) and $sigma_{D_AH}/D_AHsim0.2%$ ($2%$), respectively. At this level of precision the linear-theory model becomes systematics dominated, with parameter biases that fall beyond these values. Nevertheless, the presented method is highly model independent; its viability lies in the underlying assumption of statistical isotropy of the Universe.
In this paper we study cosmological signatures of modified gravity theories that can be written as a coupling between a extra scalar field and the electromagnetic part of the usual Lagrangian for the matter fields. In these frameworks all the electromagnetic sector of the theory is affected and variations of fundamental constants, of the cosmic distance duality relation and of the evolution law of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) are expected and are related each other. In order to search these variations we perform jointly analyses with angular diameter distances of galaxy clusters, luminosity distances of type Ia supernovae and $T_{CMB}(z)$ measurements. We obtain tight constraints with no indication of violation of the standard framework.
We present an upgraded version of textsc{MG-MAMPOSSt}, an extension of the textsc{MAMPOSSt} algorithm that performs Bayesian fits of models of mass and velocity anisotropy profiles to the distribution of tracers in projected phase space, to handle modified gravity models and constrain their parameters. The new version implements two distinct types of gravity modifications, namely general chameleon and Vainshtein screening, and is further equipped with a Monte-Carlo-Markov-Chain module for an efficient parameter space exploration. The program is complemented by the textsc{ClusterGEN} code, capable of producing mock galaxy clusters under the assumption of spherical symmetry, dynamical equilibrium, and Gaussian local velocity distribution functions as in textsc{MAMPOSSt}. We demonstrate the potential of the method by analysing a set of synthetic, isolated spherically-symmetric dark matter haloes, focusing on the statistical degeneracies between model parameters. Assuming the availability of additional lensing-like information, we forecast the constraints on the modified gravity parameters for the two models presented, as expected from joint lensing+internal kinematics analyses, in view of upcoming galaxy cluster surveys. In Vainshtein screening, we forecast the weak lensing effect through the estimation of the full convergence-shear profile. For chameleon screening, we constrain the allowed region in the space of the two free parameters of the model, further focusing on the $f(mathcal{R})$ subclass to obtain realistic bounds on the background field $|f_{mathcal{R}0}|$. Our analysis demonstrates the complementarity of internal kinematics and lensing probes for constraining modified gravity theories, and how the bounds on Vainshtein-screened theories improve through the combination of the two probes.
We present the radial distribution of the dark matter in two massive, X-ray luminous galaxy clusters, Abell~2142 and Abell~2319, and compare it with the quantity predicted as apparent manifestation of the baryonic mass in the context of the Emergent Gravity scenario, recently suggested from Verlinde (2016). Thanks to the observational strategy of the xmm Cluster Outskirt Programme (X-COP), using the X-ray emission mapped with xmm and the SZ signal in the Planck survey, we recover the gas density, temperature and thermal pressure profiles up to $sim R_{200}$, allowing to constrain at unprecedented level the total mass through the hydrostatic equilibrium equation. We show that, also including systematic uncertainties related to the X-ray based mass modelling, the apparent dark matter shows a radial profile that has a shape different from the traditional dark matter distribution, with larger discrepancies (by a factor 2--3) in the inner ($r<200$ kpc) clusters regions and a remarkable agreement only across $R_{500}$.