The fate of large-scale structure in modified gravity after GW170817 and GRB170817A


Abstract in English

The coincident detection of gravitational waves (GW) and a gamma-ray burst from a merger of neutron stars has placed an extremely stringent bound on the speed of GW. We showed previously that the presence of gravitational slip ($eta$) in cosmology is intimately tied to modifications of GW propagation. This new constraint implies that the only remaining viable source of gravitational slip is a conformal coupling to gravity in scalar-tensor theories, while viable vector-tensor theories cannot now generate gravitational slip at all. We discuss structure formation in the remaining viable models, demonstrating that (i) the dark-matter growth rate must now be at least as fast as in GR, with the possible exception of the beyond Horndeski model. (ii) If there is any scale-dependence at all in the slip parameter, it is such that it takes the GR value at large scales. We show a consistency relation which must be violated if gravity is modified.

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