No Arabic abstract
We study the impact of cosmological scale modifications to General Relativity on the dynamics of halos within voids by comparing N-body simulations incorporating Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ gravity, with $|f_{R0}|=10^{-6}$ and $10^{-5}$, to those of $Lambda$CDM. By examining the radial velocity statistics within voids classified based on their size and density-profile, as rising ($R$-type) or shell ($S$-type), we find that halo motions in small $R$-type voids, with effective radius $<15 Mpc/h$, reveal distinctive differences between $f(R)$ and $Lambda$CDM cosmologies. To understand this observed effect, we study the linear and nonlinear fifth forces, and develop an iterative algorithm to accurately solve the non-linear fifth force equation. We use this to characterize the Chameleon screening mechanism in voids and contrast the behavior with that observed in gravitationally collapsed objects. The force analysis underscores how smaller $R$-type voids exhibit the highest ratios of fifth force to Newtonian force, which source distinguishable differences in the velocity profiles and thereby provide rich environments in which to constrain gravity.
We investigate void properties in $f(R)$ models using N-body simulations, focusing on their differences from General Relativity (GR) and their detectability. In the Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ modified gravity (MG) models, the halo number density profiles of voids are not distinguishable from GR. In contrast, the same $f(R)$ voids are more empty of dark matter, and their profiles are steeper. This can in principle be observed by weak gravitational lensing of voids, for which the combination of a spectroscopic redshift and a lensing photometric redshift survey over the same sky is required. Neglecting the lensing shape noise, the $f(R)$ model parameter amplitudes $|f_{R0}|=10^{-5}$ and $10^{-4}$ may be distinguished from GR using the lensing tangential shear signal around voids by 4 and 8$sigma$ for a volume of 1~(Gpc/$h$)$^3$. The line-of-sight projection of large-scale structure is the main systematics that limits the significance of this signal for the near future wide angle and deep lensing surveys. For this reason, it is challenging to distinguish $|f_{R0}|=10^{-6}$ from GR. We expect that this can be overcome with larger volume. 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 $sigma_8$.
We present the first analysis of extended stellar kinematics of elliptical galaxies where a Yukawa--like correction to the Newtonian gravitational potential derived from f(R)-gravity is considered as an alternative to dark matter. In this framework, we model long-slit data and planetary nebulae data out to 7 Re of three galaxies with either decreasing or flat dispersion profiles. We use the corrected Newtonian potential in a dispersion-kurtosis Jeans analysis to account for the mass-anisotropy degeneracy. We find that these modified potentials are able to fit nicely all three elliptical galaxies and the anisotropy distribution is consistent with that estimated if a dark halo is considered. The parameter which measures the strength of the Yukawa-like correction is, on average, smaller than the one found previously in spiral galaxies and correlates both with the scale length of the Yukawa-like term and the orbital anisotropy.
We study the matter and velocity divergence power spectra in a f(R) gravity theory and their time evolution measured from several large-volume N-body simulations with varying box sizes and resolution. We find that accurate prediction of the matter power spectrum in f(R) gravity places stronger requirements on the simulation than is the case with LCDM, because of the nonlinear nature of the fifth force. Linear perturbation theory is shown to be a poor approximation for the f(R) models, except when the chameleon effect is very weak. We show that the relative differences from the fiducial LCDM model are much more pronounced in the nonlinear tail of the velocity divergence power spectrum than in the matter power spectrum, which suggests that future surveys which target the collection of peculiar velocity data will open new opportunities to constrain modified gravity theories. A close investigation of the time evolution of the power spectra shows that there is a pattern in the evolution history, which can be explained by the properties of the chameleon-type fifth force in f(R) gravity. Varying the model parameter |f_R0|, which quantifies the strength of the departure from standard gravity, mainly varies the epoch marking the onset of the fifth force, as a result of which the different f(R) models are in different stages of the same evolutionary path at any given time
Based on thermodynamics, we discuss the galactic clustering of expanding Universe by assuming the gravitational interaction through the modified Newtons potential given by $f(R)$ gravity. We compute the corrected $N$-particle partition function analytically. The corrected partition function leads to more exact equations of states of the system. By assuming that system follows quasi-equilibrium, we derive the exact distribution function which exhibits the $f(R)$ correction. Moreover, we evaluate the critical temperature and discuss the stability of the system. We observe the effects of correction of $f(R)$ gravity on the power law behavior of particle-particle correlation function also. In order to check feasibility of an $f(R)$ gravity approach to the clustering of galaxies, we compare our results with an observational galaxy cluster catalog.
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.