No Arabic abstract
Unimodular gravity is an appealing approach to address the cosmological constant problem. In this scenario, the vacuum energy density of quantum fields does not gravitate and the cosmological constant appears merely as an integration constant. Recently, it has been shown that energy diffusion that may arise in quantum gravity and in theories with spontaneous collapse is compatible with this framework by virtue of its restricted diffeomorphism invariance. New studies suggest that this phenomenon could lead to higher-order equations in the context of homogeneous and isotropic Universe, affecting the well-posedness of their Cauchy initial-value problem. In this work, we show that this issue can be circumvented by assuming an equation of state that relates the energy density to the function that characterizes the diffusion. As an application, we solve the field equations analytically for an isotropic and homogeneous Universes in a barotropic model and in the mass-proportional continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) scenario, assuming that only dark matter develops energy diffusion. Different solutions possessing phase transition from decelerated to accelerated expansion are found. We use cosmological data of type Ia Supernovae and observational Hubble data to constrain the free parameters of both models. It is found that very small but nontrivial energy nonconservation is compatible with the barotropic model. However, for the CSL model, we find that the best-fit values are not compatible with previous laboratory experiments. We comment on this fact and propose future directions to explore energy diffusion in cosmology.
We study cosmological perturbation theory within the framework of unimodular gravity. We show that the Lagrangian constraint on the determinant of the metric required by unimodular gravity leads to an extra constraint on the gauge freedom of the metric perturbations. Although the main equation of motion for the gravitational potential remains the same, the shift variable, which is gauge artifact in General Relativity, cannot be set to zero in unimodular gravity. This non-vanishing shift variable affects the propagation of photons throughout the cosmological evolution and therefore modifies the Sachs-Wolfe relation between the relativistic gravitational potential and the microwave temperature anisotropies. However, for adiabatic fluctuations the difference between the result in General Relativity and unimodular gravity is suppressed on large angular scales. Thus, no strong constraints on the theory can be derived.
Ghost-free bimetric gravity is an extension of general relativity, featuring a massive spin-2 field coupled to gravity. We parameterize the theory with a set of observables having specific physical interpretations. For the background cosmology and the static, spherically symmetric solutions (for example approximating the gravitational potential of the solar system), there are four directions in the parameter space in which general relativity is approached. Requiring that there is a working screening mechanism and a nonsingular evolution of the Universe, we place analytical constraints on the parameter space which rule out many of the models studied in the literature. Cosmological solutions where the accelerated expansion of the Universe is explained by the dynamical interaction of the massive spin-2 field rather than by a cosmological constant, are still viable.
This article discusses a dark energy cosmological model in the standard theory of gravity - general relativity with a broad scalar field as a source. Exact solutions of Einsteins field equations are derived by considering a particular form of deceleration parameter $q$, which shows a smooth transition from decelerated to accelerated phase in the evolution of the universe. The external datasets such as Hubble ($H(z)$) datasets, Supernovae (SN) datasets, and Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) datasets are used for constraining the model par parameters appearing in the functional form of $q$. The transition redshift is obtained at $% z_{t}=0.67_{-0.36}^{+0.26}$ for the combined data set ($H(z)+SN+BAO$), where the model shows signature-flipping and is consistent with recent observations. Moreover, the present value of the deceleration parameter comes out to be $q_{0}=-0.50_{-0.11}^{+0.12}$ and the jerk parameter $% j_{0}=-0.98_{-0.02}^{+0.06}$ (close to 1) for the combined datasets, which is compatible as per Planck2018 results. The analysis also constrains the omega value i.e., $Omega _{m_{0}}leq 0.269$ for the smooth evolution of the scalar field EoS parameter. It is seen that energy density is higher for the effective energy density of the matter field than energy density in the presence of a scalar field. The evolution of the physical and geometrical parameters is discussed in some details with the model parameters numerical constrained values. Moreover, we have performed the state-finder analysis to investigate the nature of dark energy.
We review analytical solutions of the Einstein equations which are expressed in terms of elementary functions and describe Friedmann-Lema^itre-Robertson-Walker universes sourced by multiple (real or effective) perfect fluids with constant equations of state. Effective fluids include spatial curvature, the cosmological constant, and scalar fields. We provide a description with unified notation, explicit and parametric forms of the solutions, and relations between different expressions present in the literature. Interesting solutions from a modern point of view include interacting fluids and scalar fields. Old solutions, integrability conditions, and solution methods keep being rediscovered, which motivates a review with modern eyes.
The recently suggested generalized unimodular gravity theory, which was originally put forward as a model of dark energy, can serve as a model of cosmological inflation driven by the effective perfect fluid -- the dark purely gravitational sector of the theory. Its excitations are scalar gravitons which can generate, in the domain free from ghost and gradient instabilities, the red tilted primordial power spectrum of CMB perturbations matching with observations. The reconstruction of the parametric dependence of the action of the theory in the early inflationary Universe is qualitatively sketched from the cosmological data. The alternative possibilities of generating the cosmological acceleration or quantum transition to the general relativistic phase of the theory are also briefly discussed.