In this review we refer to scalar field models with canonical kinetic energy in Einstein’s gravity as
“quintessence models”. Scalar fields are obvious candidates for dark energy, as they are for the inflaton, for
many reasons: they are the simplest fields since they lack internal degrees of freedom, do not introduce
preferred directions, are typically weakly clustered (as discussed later on), and can easily drive an
accelerated expansion. If the kinetic energy has a canonical form, the only degree of freedom is then
provided by the field potential (and of course by the initial conditions). The typical requirement is that the
potentials are flat enough to lead to the slow-roll inflation today with an energy scale
and a mass scale
.
Quintessence models are the protoypical DE models [195] and as such are the most studied ones. Since they have been explored in many reviews of DE, we limit ourselves here to a few remarks.2
The quintessence model is described by the action
where During radiation or matter dominated epochs, the energy density of the fluid dominates over that
of quintessence, i.e.,
. If the potential is steep so that the condition
is always
satisfied, the field equation of state is given by
from Eq. (1.4.6
). In this case the energy
density of the field evolves as
, which decreases much faster than the background fluid
density.
The condition is required to realize the late-time cosmic acceleration, which translates into
the condition
. Hence the scalar potential needs to be shallow enough for the field to evolve
slowly along the potential. This situation is similar to that in inflationary cosmology and it is convenient to
introduce the following slow-roll parameters [104]
From Eq. (1.4.9) the deviation of
from
is given by
However, in order to study the evolution of the perturbations of a quintessence field it is not even
necessary to compute the field evolution explicitly. Rewriting the perturbation equations of the field in
terms of the perturbations of the density contrast and the velocity
in the conformal Newtonian
gauge, one finds [see, e.g., 536
, Appendix A] that they correspond precisely to those of a fluid, (1.3.17
) and
(1.3.18
), with
and
with
. The adiabatic sound
speed,
, is defined in Eq. (1.4.31
). The large value of the sound speed
, equal to the speed of light,
means that quintessence models do not cluster significantly inside the horizon [see 785
, 786
, and
Section 1.8.6 for a detailed analytical discussion of quintessence clustering and its detectability with future
probes, for arbitrary
].
Many quintessence potentials have been proposed in the literature. A simple crude classification divides them into two classes, (i) “freezing” models and (ii) “thawing” models [196]. In class (i) the field was rolling along the potential in the past, but the movement gradually slows down after the system enters the phase of cosmic acceleration. The representative potentials that belong to this class are
(i) Freezing models
The former potential does not possess a minimum and hence the field rolls down the potential toward infinity.
This appears, for example, in the fermion condensate model as a dynamical supersymmetry
breaking [138]. The latter potential has a minimum at which the field is eventually trapped
(corresponding to ). This potential can be constructed in the framework of supergravity
[170].
In thawing models (ii) the field (with mass ) has been frozen by Hubble friction (i.e., the term
in Eq. (1.4.9
)) until recently and then it begins to evolve once
drops below
. The equation
of state of DE is
at early times, which is followed by the growth of
. The representative
potentials that belong to this class are
(ii) Thawing models
The former potential is similar to that of chaotic inflation () used in the early universe (with
[577
], while the mass scale
is very different. The model with
was proposed by [487]
in connection with the possibility to allow for negative values of
. The universe will collapse in
the future if the system enters the region with
. The latter potential appears as a
potential for the Pseudo-Nambu–Goldstone Boson (PNGB). This was introduced by [370] in
response to the first tentative suggestions that the universe may be dominated by the cosmological
constant. In this model the field is nearly frozen at the potential maximum during the period in
which the field mass
is smaller than
, but it begins to roll down around the present
(
).
Potentials can also be classified in several other ways, e.g., on the basis of the existence of special
solutions. For instance, tracker solutions have approximately constant and
along
special attractors. A wide range of initial conditions converge to a common, cosmic evolutionary
tracker. Early DE models contain instead solutions in which DE was not negligible even during
the last scattering. While in the specific Euclid forecasts section (1.8) we will not explicitly
consider these models, it is worthwhile to note that the combination of observations of the
CMB and of large scale structure (such as Euclid) can dramatically constrain these models
drastically improving the inverse area figure of merit compared to current constraints, as discussed
in [467].
In a quintessence model it is the potential energy of a scalar field that leads to the late-time acceleration of the expansion of the universe; the alternative, in which the kinetic energy of the scalar field which dominates, is known as k-essence. Models of k-essence are characterized by an action for the scalar field of the following form
whereThe dynamics of the k-essence field are given by a continuity equation
or equivalently by the scalar equation of motion where For this second order equation of motion to be hyperbolic, and hence physically meaningful, we must impose K-essence was first proposed by [61The speed of sound for k-essence fluctuation is
So that whenever the kinetic terms for the scalar field are not linear in
In this review we often make reference to DE and MG models. Although in an increasing number of publications a similar dichotomy is employed, there is currently no consensus on where to draw the line between the two classes. Here we will introduce an operational definition for the purpose of this document.
Roughly speaking, what most people have in mind when talking about standard dark energy are models
of minimally-coupled scalar fields with standard kinetic energy in 4-dimensional Einstein gravity, the only
functional degree of freedom being the scalar potential. Often, this class of model is referred to simply as
“quintessence”. However, when we depart from this picture a simple classification is not easy to draw. One
problem is that, as we have seen in the previous sections, both at background and at the perturbation level,
different models can have the same observational signatures [537]. This problem is not due to the use of
perturbation theory: any modification to Einstein’s equations can be interpreted as standard Einstein
gravity with a modified “matter” source, containing an arbitrary mixture of scalars, vectors and tensors
[457
, 535].
The simplest example can be discussed by looking at Eqs. (1.3.23). One can modify gravity and obtain a
modified Poisson equation, and therefore
, or one can introduce a clustering dark energy (for
example a k-essence model with small sound speed) that also induces the same
(see Eq. 1.3.23
).
This extends to the anisotropic stress
: there is in general a one-to-one relation at first order between a
fluid with arbitrary equation of state, sound speed, and anisotropic stress and a modification of the
Einstein–Hilbert Lagrangian.
Therefore, we could simply abandon any attempt to distinguish between DE and MG, and just analyse different models, comparing their properties and phenomenology. However, there is a possible classification that helps us set targets for the observations, which is often useful in concisely communicating the results of complex arguments. In this review, we will use the following notation:
Notice that both clustering dark energy and explicit modified gravity models lead to deviations from
what is often called ‘general relativity’ (or, like here, standard dark energy) in the literature when
constraining extra perturbation parameters like the growth index . For this reason we generically call
both of these classes MG models. In other words, in this review we use the simple and by now extremely
popular (although admittedly somewhat misleading) expression “modified gravity” to denote models in
which gravity is modified and/or dark energy clusters or interacts with other fields. Whenever we feel useful,
we will remind the reader of the actual meaning of the expression “modified gravity” in this
review.
Therefore, on sub-horizon scales and at first order in perturbation theory our definition of MG is
straightforward: models with (see Eq. 1.3.23
) are standard DE, otherwise they are
MG models. In this sense the definition above is rather convenient: we can use it to quantify,
for instance, how well Euclid will distinguish between standard dynamical dark energy and
modified gravity by forecasting the errors on
or on related quantities like the growth index
.
On the other hand, it is clear that this definition is only a practical way to group different models and should not be taken as a fundamental one. We do not try to set a precise threshold on, for instance, how much dark energy should cluster before we call it modified gravity: the boundary between the classes is therefore left undetermined but we think this will not harm the understanding of this document.
A first class of models in which dark energy shows dynamics, in connection with the presence of a fifth force different from gravity, is the case of ‘interacting dark energy’: we consider the possibility that dark energy, seen as a dynamical scalar field, may interact with other components in the universe. This class of models effectively enters in the “explicit modified gravity models” in the classification above, because the gravitational attraction between dark matter particles is modified by the presence of a fifth force. However, we note that the anisotropic stress for DE is still zero in the Einstein frame, while it is, in general, non-zero in the Jordan frame. In some cases (when a universal coupling is present) such an interaction can be explicitly recast in a non-minimal coupling to gravity, after a redefinition of the metric and matter fields (Weyl scaling). We would like to identify whether interactions (couplings) of dark energy with matter fields, neutrinos or gravity itself can affect the universe in an observable way.
In this subsection we give a general description of the following main interacting scenarios:
In all these cosmologies the coupling introduces a fifth force, in addition to standard gravitational
attraction. The presence of a new force, mediated by the DE scalar field (sometimes called the
‘cosmon’ [954], seen as the mediator of a cosmological interaction) has several implications and can
significantly modify the process of structure formation. We will discuss cases (2) and (3) in
Section 2.
In these scenarios the presence of the additional interaction couples the evolution of components that in
the standard -FLRW would evolve independently. The stress-energy tensor
of each species is, in
general, not conserved – only the total stress-energy tensor is. Usually, at the level of the Lagrangian, the
coupling is introduced by allowing the mass
of matter fields to depend on a scalar field
via a
function
whose choice specifies the interaction. This wide class of cosmological models can be
described by the following action:
For a general treatment of background and perturbation equations we refer to [514, 33
, 35
, 724
]. Here
the coupling of the dark-energy scalar field to a generic matter component (denoted by index
) is treated
as an external source
in the Bianchi identities:
The zero component of (1.4.21) gives the background conservation equations:
As for perturbation equations, it is possible to include the coupling in a modified Euler equation:
The Euler equation in cosmic time (The relative significance of these key ingredients can lead to a variety of potentially observable effects, especially on structure formation. We will recall some of them in the following subsections as well as, in more detail, for two specific couplings in the dark matter section (2.11, 2.9) of this report.
A coupling between dark energy and baryons is active when the baryon mass is a function of the
dark-energy scalar field: . Such a coupling is constrained to be very small: main bounds come
from tests of the equivalence principle and solar system constraints [130]. More in general, depending on the
coupling, bounds on the variation of fundamental constants over cosmological time-scales may have to be
considered ([631, 303, 304
, 639] and references therein). It is presumably very difficult to have
significant cosmological effects due to a coupling to baryons only. However, uncoupled baryons
can still play a role in the presence of a coupling to dark matter (see Section 1.6 on nonlinear
aspects).
An interaction between dark energy and dark matter (CDM) is active when CDM mass is a function of the
dark-energy scalar field: . In this case the coupling is not affected by tests on the equivalence
principle and solar-system constraints and can therefore be stronger than the one with baryons. One
may argue that dark-matter particles are themselves coupled to baryons, which leads, through
quantum corrections, to direct coupling between dark energy and baryons. The strength of such
couplings can still be small and was discussed in [304] for the case of neutrino–dark-energy
couplings. Also, quantum corrections are often recalled to spoil the flatness of a quintessence
potential. However, it may be misleading to calculate quantum corrections up to a cutoff scale, as
contributions above the cutoff can possibly compensate terms below the cutoff, as discussed in
[958].
Typical values of presently allowed by observations (within current CMB data) are within the range
(at 95% CL for a constant coupling and an exponential potential) [114
, 47
, 35
, 44
], or
possibly more [539
, 531
] if neutrinos are taken into account or for more realistic time-dependent choices of
the coupling. This framework is generally referred to as ‘coupled quintessence’ (CQ). Various
choices of couplings have been investigated in literature, including constant and varying
[33
, 619
, 35
, 518
, 414
, 747
, 748
, 724
, 377].
The presence of a coupling (and therefore, of a fifth force acting among dark-matter particles) modifies
the background expansion and linear perturbations [34, 33, 35
], therefore affecting CMB and
cross-correlation of CMB and LSS [44
, 35
, 47
, 45
, 114
, 539
, 531
, 970, 612
, 42
].
Furthermore, structure formation itself is modified [604, 618
, 518
, 611
, 870
, 3
, 666, 129
, 962
, 79
, 76
, 77
, 80
, 565
, 562
, 75
, 980
, 640].
An alternative approach, also investigated in the literature [619, 916
, 915
, 613
, 387
, 388
, 193
, 794
, 192
],
where the authors consider as a starting point Eq. (1.4.21
): the coupling is then introduced by choosing
directly a covariant stress-energy tensor on the RHS of the equation, treating dark energy as a fluid and in
the absence of a starting action. The advantage of this approach is that a good parameterization
allows us to investigate several models of dark energy at the same time. Problems connected
to instabilities of some parameterizations or to the definition of a physically-motivated speed
of sound for the density fluctuations can be found in [916
]. It is also possible to both take a
covariant form for the coupling and a quintessence dark-energy scalar field, starting again directly
from Eq. (1.4.21
). This has been done, e.g., in [145], [144]. At the background level only, [235],
[237], [302] and [695] have also considered which background constraints can be obtained when
starting from a fixed present ratio of dark energy and dark matter. The disadvantage of this
approach is that it is not clear how to perturb a coupling that has been defined as a background
quantity.
A Yukawa-like interaction was investigated [357, 279], pointing out that coupled dark energy behaves as
a fluid with an effective equation of state
, though staying well defined and without the presence
of ghosts [279
].
For an illustration of observable effects related to dark-energy–dark-matter interaction see also Section (2.11) of this report.
A coupling between dark energy and neutrinos can be even stronger than the one with dark
matter and as compared to gravitational strength. Typical values of are order 50 – 100 or
even more, such that even the small fraction of cosmic energy density in neutrinos can have a
substantial influence on the time evolution of the quintessence field. In this scenario neutrino masses
change in time, depending on the value of the dark-energy scalar field
. Such a coupling has
been investigated within MaVaNs [356
, 714
, 135
, 12
, 952
, 280
, 874
, 856
, 139
, 178
, 177
] and
more recently within growing neutrino cosmologies [36
, 957
, 668
, 963
, 962
, 727
, 179
, 78
]. In
this latter case, DE properties are related to the neutrino mass and to a cosmological event,
i.e., neutrinos becoming non-relativistic. This leads to the formation of stable neutrino lumps
[668
, 963
, 78] at very large scales only (
100 Mpc and beyond) as well as to signatures in the CMB
spectra [727
]. For an illustration of observable effects related to this case see Section (2.9) of this
report.
Scalar-tensor theories [954, 471, 472, 276, 216, 217, 955
, 912, 722, 354, 146, 764, 721, 797, 646, 725
, 726, 205, 54
]
extend GR by introducing a non-minimal coupling between a scalar field (acting also as dark energy) and
the metric tensor (gravity); they are also sometimes referred to as ‘extended quintessence’. We include
scalar-tensor theories among ‘interacting cosmologies’ because, via a Weyl transformation, they are
equivalent to a GR framework (minimal coupling to gravity) in which the dark-energy scalar field
is
coupled (universally) to all species [954
, 608
, 936
, 351
, 724
, 219
]. In other words, these theories correspond
to the case where, in action (1.4.20
), the mass of all species (baryons, dark matter, …) is a function
with the same coupling for every species
. Indeed, a description of the coupling via an
action such as (1.4.20
) is originally motivated by extensions of GR such as scalar-tensor theories.
Typically the strength of the scalar-mediated interaction is required to be orders of magnitude
weaker than gravity ([553], [725
] and references therein for recent constraints). It is possible
to tune this coupling to be as small as is required – for example by choosing a suitably flat
potential
for the scalar field. However, this leads back to naturalness and fine-tuning
problems.
In Sections 1.4.6 and 1.4.7 we will discuss in more detail a number of ways in which new scalar degrees
of freedom can naturally couple to standard model fields, while still being in agreement with observations.
We mention here only that the presence of chameleon mechanisms [171, 672, 670, 172, 464, 173, 282] can,
for example, modify the coupling depending on the environment. In this way, a small (screened)
coupling in high-density regions, in agreement with observations, is still compatible with a
bigger coupling (
) active in low density regions. In other words, a dynamical mechanism
ensures that the effects of the coupling are screened in laboratory and solar system tests of
gravity.
Typical effects of scalar-tensor theories on CMB and structure formation include:
However, it is important to remark that screening mechanisms are meant to protect the scalar field in
high-density regions (and therefore allow for bigger couplings in low density environments) but
they do not address problems related to self-acceleration of the DE scalar field, which still
usually require some fine-tuning to match present observations on .
theories, which
can be mapped into a subclass of scalar-tensor theories, will be discussed in more detail in
Section 1.4.6.
In this section we pay attention to the evolution of the perturbations of a general dark-energy fluid with an
evolving equation of state parameter . Current limits on the equation of state parameter
of
the dark energy indicate that
, and so do not exclude
, a region of parameter space often
called phantom energy. Even though the region for which
may be unphysical at the quantum
level, it is still important to probe it, not least to test for coupled dark energy and alternative theories of
gravity or higher dimensional models that can give rise to an effective or apparent phantom
energy.
Although there is no problem in considering for the background evolution, there are apparent
divergences appearing in the perturbations when a model tries to cross the limit
. This is a
potential headache for experiments like Euclid that directly probe the perturbations through
measurements of the galaxy clustering and weak lensing. To analyze the Euclid data, we need to be
able to consider models that cross the phantom divide
at the level of first-order
perturbations (since the only dark-energy model that has no perturbations at all is the cosmological
constant).
However, at the level of cosmological first-order perturbation theory, there is no fundamental limitation that prevents an effective fluid from crossing the phantom divide.
As the terms in Eqs. (1.3.17
) and (1.3.18
) containing
will generally diverge. This
can be avoided by replacing
with a new variable
defined via
. This corresponds to
rewriting the
-
component of the energy momentum tensor as
, which avoids
problems if
when
. Replacing the time derivatives by a derivative with respect
to the logarithm of the scale factor
(denoted by a prime), we obtain [599
, 450, 536
]:
We have seen that neither barotropic fluids nor canonical scalar fields, for which the pressure perturbation
is of the type (1.4.34), can cross the phantom divide. However, there is a simple model [called the quintom
model 360, 451] consisting of two fluids of the same type as in the previous Section 1.4.5.1 but with a
constant
on either side of
. The combination of the two fluids then effectively
crosses the phantom divide if we start with
, as the energy density in the fluid with
will grow faster, so that this fluid will eventually dominate and we will end up with
.
The perturbations in this scenario were analyzed in detail in [536], where it was shown that in addition
to the rest-frame contribution, one also has relative and non-adiabatic perturbations. All these contributions
apparently diverge at the crossing, but their sum stays finite. When parameterizing the perturbations in the
Newtonian gauge as
Kunz and Sapone [536] found that a good approximation to the quintom model behavior can be found
by regularizing the adiabatic sound speed in the gauge transformation with
This result appears also related to the behavior found for coupled dark-energy models (originally
introduced to solve the coincidence problem) where dark matter and dark energy interact not only through
gravity [33]. The effective dark energy in these models can also cross the phantom divide without
divergences [462, 279, 534
].
The idea is to insert (by hand) a term in the continuity equations of the two fluids
where the subscripts However in this class of models there are other instabilities arising at the perturbation level regardless of
the coupling used, [cf. 916].
Although a cosmological constant has and no perturbations, the converse is not automatically
true:
does not necessarily imply that there are no perturbations. It is only when we set from the
beginning (in the calculation):
For instance, if we set and
(where
can be a generic function) in Eqs. (1.4.28
)
and (1.4.29
) we have
and
. However, the solutions are decaying modes due to the
term so they are not important at late times; but it is interesting to notice that they are in
general not zero.
As another example, if we have a non-zero anisotropic stress then the Eqs. (1.4.28
) – (1.4.29
) will
have a source term that will influence the growth of
and
in the same way as
does (just because
they appear in the same way). The
term in front of
should not worry us as we can always
define the anisotropic stress through
It is also interesting to notice that when the perturbation equations tell us that dark-energy
perturbations are not influenced through
and
(see Eq. (1.4.28
) and (1.4.29
)). Since
and
are the quantities directly entering the metric, they must remain finite, and even much smaller than
for perturbation theory to hold. Since, in the absence of direct couplings, the dark energy
only feels the other constituents through the terms
and
, it decouples
completely in the limit
and just evolves on its own. But its perturbations still enter the
Poisson equation and so the dark matter perturbation will feel the effects of the dark-energy
perturbations.
Although this situation may seem contrived, it might be that the acceleration of the universe is just an
observed effect as a consequence of a modified theory of gravity. As was shown in [537], any modified
gravity theory can be described as an effective fluid both at background and at perturbation level; in such a
situation it is imperative to describe its perturbations properly as this effective fluid may manifest
unexpected behavior.
In parallel to models with extra degrees of freedom in the matter sector, such as interacting quintessence
(and k-essence, not treated here), another promising approach to the late-time acceleration enigma is to
modify the left-hand side of the Einstein equations and invoke new degrees of freedom, belonging this time
to the gravitational sector itself. One of the simplest and most popular extensions of GR and a known
example of modified gravity models is the gravity in which the 4-dimensional action is given
by some generic function
of the Ricci scalar
(for an introduction see, e.g., [49
]):
There are two approaches to deriving field equations from the action (1.4.44).
The first approach is the metric formalism in which the connections are the usual connections
defined in terms of the metric
. The field equations can be obtained by varying the action
(1.4.44
) with respect to
:
The second approach is the Palatini formalism, where and
are treated as independent
variables. Varying the action (1.4.44
) with respect to
gives
In GR we have and
, so that the term
in Eq. (1.4.46
) vanishes. In this
case both the metric and the Palatini formalisms give the relation
, which means
that the Ricci scalar
is directly determined by the matter (the trace
).
In modified gravity models where is a function of
, the term
does not vanish in
Eq. (1.4.46
). This means that, in the metric formalism, there is a propagating scalar degree of
freedom,
. The trace equation (1.4.46
) governs the dynamics of the scalar field
–
dubbed “scalaron” [862
]. In the Palatini formalism the kinetic term
is not present in
Eq. (1.4.48
), which means that the scalar-field degree of freedom does not propagate freely
[32
, 563, 567, 566].
The de Sitter point corresponds to a vacuum solution at which the Ricci scalar is constant. Since
at this point, we get
It is important to realize that the dynamics of dark-energy models is different depending on the
two formalisms. Here we confine ourselves to the metric case only.
Already in the early 1980s it was known that the model can be responsible for
inflation in the early universe [862]. This comes from the fact that the presence of the quadratic term
gives rise to an asymptotically exact de Sitter solution. Inflation ends when the term
becomes smaller than the linear term
. Since the term
is negligibly small
relative to
at the present epoch, this model is not suitable to realizing the present cosmic
acceleration.
Since a late-time acceleration requires modification for small , models of the type
(
) were proposed as a candidate for dark energy [204, 212, 687]. While the late-time cosmic
acceleration is possible in these models, it has become clear that they do not satisfy local gravity constraints
because of the instability associated with negative values of
[230
, 319
, 852, 697
, 355
]. Moreover a
standard matter epoch is not present because of a large coupling between the Ricci scalar and the
non-relativistic matter [43
].
Then, we can ask what are the conditions for the viability of dark-energy models in the metric
formalism. In the following we first present such conditions and then explain step by step why they are
required.
This is required to avoid a negative effective gravitational constant.
This is required for consistency with local gravity tests [319, 697, 355, 683], for the presence
of the matter-dominated epoch [43, 39
], and for the stability of cosmological perturbations
[213, 849, 110, 358].
This is required for consistency with local gravity tests [48, 456, 864
, 53
, 904
] and for the
presence of the matter-dominated epoch [39
].
This is required for the stability of the late-time de Sitter point [678, 39].
For example, the model (
,
) does not satisfy the condition
(ii).
Below we list some viable models that satisfy the above conditions.
Let us consider the cosmological dynamics of gravity in the metric formalism. It is possible to
carry out a general analysis without specifying the form of
. In the flat FLRW spacetime the Ricci
scalar is given by
The effective equation of state of the system (i.e., ) is
The dynamics of the full system can be investigated by analyzing the stability properties of the critical
phase-space points as in, e.g., [39]. The general conclusions is that only models with a characteristic
function positive and close to
CDM, i.e.,
, are cosmologically viable. That is, only for
these models one finds a sequence of a long decelerated matter epoch followed by a stable accelerated
attractor.
The perturbation equations have been derived in, e.g., [473, 907]. Neglecting the contribution of radiation one has
where , and the new variable
satisfies
These relations can be straightforwardly generalized. In [287] the perturbation equations for the
Lagrangian have been extended to include coupled scalar fields and their kinetic energy
, resulting in a
-theory. In the slightly simplified case in which
, with arbitrary functions
, one obtains
Euclid forecasts for the models will be presented in Section 1.8.7.
Instead of introducing new scalar degrees of freedom such as in theories, another philosophy
in modifying gravity is to modify the graviton itself. In this case the new degrees of freedom
belong to the gravitational sector itself; examples include massive gravity and higher-dimensional
frameworks, such as the Dvali–Gabadadze–Porrati (DGP) model [326] and its extensions. The new
degrees of freedom can be responsible for a late-time speed-up of the universe, as is summarized
below for a choice of selected models. We note here that while such self-accelerating solutions
are interesting in their own right, they do not tackle the old cosmological constant problem:
why the observed cosmological constant is so much smaller than expected in the first place.
Instead of answering this question directly, an alternative approach is the idea of degravitation
[see 327
, 328
, 58
, 330
], where the cosmological constant could be as large as expected from
standard field theory, but would simply gravitate very little (see the paragraph in Section 1.4.7.1
below).
Furthermore, in this model, one can recover an interesting range of cosmologies, in particular a modified Friedmann equation with a self-accelerating solution. The Einstein equations thus obtained reduce to the following modified Friedmann equation in a homogeneous and isotropic metric [298]
such that at higher energies one recovers the usual four-dimensional behavior,
The Galileon terms described above form a subset of the “generalized Galileons”. A generalized
Galileon model allows nonlinear derivative interactions of the scalar field in the Lagrangian
while insisting that the equations of motion remain at most second order in derivatives, thus
removing any ghost-like instabilities. However, unlike the pure Galileon models, generalized
Galileons do not impose the symmetry of Eq. (1.4.75
). These theories were first written down by
Horndeski [445] and later rediscoved by Deffayet et al. [300]. They are a linear combination
of Lagrangians constructed by multiplying the Galileon Lagrangians
by an arbitrary
scalar function of the scalar
and its first derivatives. Just like the Galileon, generalized
Galileons can give rise to cosmological acceleration and to Vainshtein screening. However, as they
lack the Galileon symmetry these theories are not protected from quantum corrections. Many
other theories can also be found within the spectrum of generalized Galileon models, including
k-essence.
When properly taking into account the issue associated with the ghost, such models give rise to a theory of massive gravity (soft mass graviton) composed of one helicity-2 mode, helicity-1 modes that decouple and 2 helicity-0 modes. In order for this theory to be consistent with standard GR in four dimensions, both helicity-0 modes should decouple from the theory. As in DGP, this decoupling does not happen in a trivial way, and relies on a phenomenon of strong coupling. Close enough to any source, both scalar modes are strongly coupled and therefore freeze.
The resulting theory appears as a theory of a massless spin-2 field in four-dimensions, in other words as
GR. If and for
, the respective Vainshtein scale or strong coupling scale, i.e., the
distance from the source
within which each mode is strongly coupled is
,
where
. Around a source
, one recovers four-dimensional gravity for
,
five-dimensional gravity for
and finally six-dimensional gravity at larger distances
.
Recent progress has shown that theories of hard massive gravity can be free of any ghost-like pathologies
in the decoupling limit where and
keeping the scale
fixed [291, 292].
The absence of pathologies in the decoupling limit does not guarantee the stability of massive gravity on
cosmological backgrounds, but provides at least a good framework to understand the implications of a small
graviton mass. Unlike a massless spin-2 field, which only bears two polarizations, a massive
one bears five of them, namely two helicity-2 modes, two helicity-1 modes which decouple,
and one helicity-0 mode (denoted as
). As in the braneworld models presented previously,
this helicity-0 mode behaves as a scalar field with specific derivative interactions of the form
All models of modified gravity presented in this section have in common the presence of at
least one additional helicity-0 degree of freedom that is not an arbitrary scalar, but descends
from a full-fledged spin-two field. As such it has no potential and enters the Lagrangian via
very specific derivative terms fixed by symmetries. However, tests of gravity severely constrain
the presence of additional scalar degrees of freedom. As is well known, in theories of massive
gravity the helicity-0 mode can evade fifth-force constraints in the vicinity of matter if the
helicity-0 mode interactions are important enough to freeze out the field fluctuations [913]. This
Vainshtein mechanism is similar in spirit but different in practice to the chameleon and symmetron
mechanisms presented in detail in the next Sections 1.4.7.3 and 1.4.7.4. One key difference
relies on the presence of derivative interactions rather than a specific potential. So, rather than
becoming massive in dense regions, in the Vainshtein mechanism the helicity-0 mode becomes
weakly coupled to matter (and light, i.e., sources in general) at high energy. This screening
of scalar mode can yet have distinct signatures in cosmology and in particular for structure
formation.
While quintessence introduces a new degree of freedom to explain the late-time acceleration of the universe, the idea behind modified gravity is instead to tackle the core of the cosmological constant problem and its tuning issues as well as screening any fifth forces that would come from the introduction of extra degrees of freedom. As mentioned in Section 1.4.4.1, the strength with which these new degrees of freedom can couple to the fields of the standard model is very tightly constrained by searches for fifth forces and violations of the weak equivalence principle. Typically the strength of the scalar mediated interaction is required to be orders of magnitude weaker than gravity. It is possible to tune this coupling to be as small as is required, leading however to additional naturalness problems. Here we discuss in more detail a number of ways in which new scalar degrees of freedom can naturally couple to standard model fields, whilst still being in agreement with observations, because a dynamical mechanism ensures that their effects are screened in laboratory and solar system tests of gravity. This is done by making some property of the field dependent on the background environment under consideration. These models typically fall into two classes; either the field becomes massive in a dense environment so that the scalar force is suppressed because the Compton wavelength of the interaction is small, or the coupling to matter becomes weaker in dense environments to ensure that the effects of the scalar are suppressed. Both types of behavior require the presence of nonlinearities.
In the presence of non-relativistic matter these two pieces conspire to give rise to an effective potential for the scalar field
whereThe environmental dependence of the mass of the field allows the chameleon to avoid the constraints of fifth-force experiments through what is known as the thin-shell effect. If a dense object is embedded in a diffuse background the chameleon is massive inside the object. There, its Compton wavelength is small. If the Compton wavelength is smaller than the size of the object, then the scalar mediated force felt by an observer at infinity is sourced, not by the entire object, but instead only by a thin shell of matter (of depth the Compton wavelength) at the surface. This leads to a natural suppression of the force without the need to fine tune the coupling constant.
Inside the Vainshtein radius, when the nonlinear, higher-derivative terms become important they cause the kinetic terms for scalar fluctuations to become large. This can be interpreted as a relative weakening of the coupling between the scalar field and matter. In this way the strength of the interaction is suppressed in the vicinity of massive objects.
In 1983 it was suggested by Milgrom [659] that the emerging evidence for the presence of dark matter in galaxies could follow from a modification either to how ‘baryonic’ matter responded to the Newtonian gravitational field it created or to how the gravitational field was related to the baryonic matter density. Collectively these ideas are referred to as MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). By way of illustration, MOND may be considered as a modification to the non-relativistic Poisson equation:
where We are naturally interested in a relativistic version of such a proposal. The building block is the
perturbed spacetime metric already introduced in Eq. 1.3.8
Indeed, when the geometry is of the form (1.4.82), anisotropic stresses are negligible and
is aligned
with the flow of time
, then one can find appropriate values of the
and
such that
is
dominated by a term equal to
. This influence then leads to a modification to the
time-time component of Einstein’s equations: instead of reducing to Poisson’s equation, one recovers
an equation of the form (1.4.81
). Therefore the models are successful covariant realizations of
MOND.
Interestingly, in the FLRW limit , the time-time component of Einstein’s equations in the
GEA model becomes a modified Friedmann equation:
Returning to the original motivation behind the theory, the next step is to look at the theory on cosmological scales and see whether the GEA models are realistic alternatives to dark matter. As emphasized, the additional structure in spacetime is dynamical and so possesses independent degrees of freedom. As the model is assumed to be uncoupled to other matter, the gravitational field equations would regard the influence of these degrees of freedom as a type of dark matter (possibly coupled non-minimally to gravity, and not necessarily ‘cold’).
The possibility that the model may then be a viable alternative to the dark sector in background
cosmology and linear cosmological perturbations has been explored in depth in [989, 564] and [991
]. As an
alternative to dark matter, it was found that the GEA models could replicate some but not all of the
following features of cold dark matter: influence on background dynamics of the universe; negligible
sound speed of perturbations; growth rate of dark matter ‘overdensity’; absence of anisotropic
stress and contribution to the cosmological Poisson equation; effective minimal coupling to the
gravitational field. When compared to the data from large scale structure and the CMB, the model
fared significantly less well than the Concordance Model and so is excluded. If one relaxes the
requirement that the vector field be responsible for the effects of cosmological dark matter,
one can look at the model as one responsible only for the effects of dark energy. It was found
[991] that the current most stringent constraints on the model’s success as dark energy were
from constraints on the size of large scale CMB anisotropy. Specifically, possible variation in
of the ‘dark energy’ along with new degrees of freedom sourcing anisotropic stress in the
perturbations was found to lead to new, non-standard time variation of the potentials
and
. These time variations source large scale anisotropies via the integrated Sachs–Wolfe
effect, and the parameter space of the model is constrained in avoiding the effect becoming too
pronounced.
In spite of this, given the status of current experimental bounds it is conceivable that a more successful alternative to the dark sector may share some of these points of departure from the Concordance Model and yet fare significantly better at the level of the background and linear perturbations.
Another proposal for a theory of modified gravity arising from Milgrom’s observation is the
Tensor-Vector-Scalar theory of gravity, or TeVeS. TeVeS theory is bimetric with two frames: the “geometric
frame” for the gravitational fields, and the “physical frame”, for the matter fields. The three gravitational
fields are the metric (with connection
) that we refer to as the geometric metric, the vector field
and the scalar field
. The action for all matter fields, uses a single physical metric
(with
connection
). The two metrics are related via an algebraic, disformal relation [116] as
In a Friedmann universe, the cosmological evolution is governed by the Friedmann equation
where Although no further studies of accelerated expansion in TeVeS have been performed, it is very plausible
that certain choices of function will inevitably lead to acceleration. It is easy to see that the scalar field
action has the same form as a k-essence/k-inflation [61] action which has been considered as a
candidate theory for acceleration. It is unknown in general whether this has similar features
as the uncoupled k-essence, although Zhao’s study indicates that this a promising research
direction [984].
In TeVeS, cold dark matter is absent. Therefore, in order to get acceptable values for the physical
Hubble constant today (i.e., around ), we have to supplement the absence of CDM
with something else. Possibilities include the scalar field itself, massive neutrinos [841
, 364
] and a
cosmological constant. At the same time, one has to get the right angular diameter distance to
recombination [364]. These two requirements can place severe constraints on the allowed free
functions.
Until TeVeS was proposed and studied in detail, MOND-type theories were assumed to be fatally flawed: their lack of a dark matter component would necessarily prevent the formation of large-scale structure compatible with current observational data. In the case of an Einstein universe, it is well known that, since baryons are coupled to photons before recombination they do not have enough time to grow into structures on their own. In particular, on scales smaller than the diffusion damping scale perturbations in such a universe are exponentially damped due to the Silk-damping effect. CDM solves all of these problems because it does not couple to photons and therefore can start creating potential wells early on, into which the baryons fall.
TeVeS contains two additional fields, which change the structure of the equations significantly. The first
study of TeVeS predictions for large-scale structure observations was conducted in [841]. They found that
TeVeS can indeed form large-scale structure compatible with observations depending on the choice of TeVeS
parameters in the free function. In fact the form of the matter power spectrum
in TeVeS
looks quite similar to that in
CDM. Thus TeVeS can produce matter power spectra that
cannot be distinguished from
CDM by current observations. One would have to turn to other
observables to distinguish the two models. The power spectra for TeVeS and
CDM are
plotted on the right panel of Figure 1
. [318
] provided an analytical explanation of the growth of
structure seen numerically by [841
] and found that the growth in TeVeS is due to the vector field
perturbation.
It is premature to claim (as in [843, 855]) that only a theory with CDM can fit CMB observations; a
prime example to the contrary is the EBI theory [83
]. Nevertheless, in the case of TeVeS [841
] numerically
solved the linear Boltzmann equation in the case of TeVeS and calculated the CMB angular power spectrum
for TeVeS. By using initial conditions close to adiabatic the spectrum thus found provides very poor fit as
compared to the
CDM model (see the left panel of Figure 1
). The CMB seems to put TeVeS into
trouble, at least for the Bekenstein free function. The result of [318
] has a further direct consequence. The
difference
, sometimes named the gravitational slip (see Section 1.3.2), has additional contributions
coming from the perturbed vector field
. Since the vector field is required to grow in order to drive
structure formation, it will inevitably lead to a growing
. If the difference
can be measured
observationally, it can provide a substantial test of TeVeS that can distinguish TeVeS from
CDM.
http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2013-6 |
Living Rev. Relativity 16, (2013), 6
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