Separating Dark Physics from Physical Darkness: Minimalist Modified Gravity vs. Dark Energy

By D. Huterer, Eric Linder. 2006

160 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The acceleration of the cosmic expansion may be due to a new component of physical energy density or a modification of physics itself. Mapping the expansion of cosmic scales and the growth of large scale structure in tandem can provide insights to distinguish between the two origins. Using Minimal Modified Gravity (MMG) - a single parameter gravitational growth index formalism to parameterize modified gravity theories - we examine the constraints that cosmological data can place on the nature of the new physics. For next generation measurements combining weak lensing, supernovae distances, and the cosmic microwave background we can extend the reach of physics to allow for fitting gravity simultaneously with the expansion equation of state, diluting the equation of state estimation by less than 25percent relative to when general relativity is assumed, and determining the growth index to 8percent. For weak lensing we examine the level of understanding needed of quasi- and nonlinear structure formation in modified gravity theories, and the trade off between stronger precision but greater susceptibility to bias as progressively more nonlinear information is used.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a342380866ec1cbd2fbf417b37c561d341a61334

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. H. Hoekstra
2. T. Erben
3. H. Hildebrandt
4. B. Joachimi
5. K. Kuijken
6. M. Troxel
7. M. Ishak
8. E. Semboloni

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. T. Schrabback
2. T. Erben
3. Y. Mellier
4. H. Hildebrandt
5. K. Kuijken
6. J. Hartlap
7. M. Ishak
8. Stefan Hilbert

Citations in the corpus

• Evidence of the accelerated expansion of the Universe from weak lensing tomography with COSMOS (2009, background): “…are various attempts to explain dark energy, ranging from Einstein’s cosmlogical constant, via a dynamic fluid named quintessence, toa possible breakdown of General Relativity (e.g. Huterer & Linder 2007; Albrecht et al. 2009), all of which lead to profound implications for fundamental physics.”
• The Intrinsic Alignment of Galaxies and its Impact on Weak Gravitational Lensing in an Era of Precision Cosmology (2014, background): “…and modified gravity theories at cosmological scales (e.g., Song (2005); Capozziello et al. (2006); Ishak et al. (2006); Zhao et al. (2006); Huterer and Linder (2007); Linder and Cahn (2007); Zhang et al. (2007); Acquaviva et al. (2008); Daniel et al. (2008); Schmidt (2008); Tsujikawa and…”