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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 667 records · Page 37
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DOE OSTI2012

Growth histories in bimetric massive gravity

We perform cosmological perturbation theory in Hassan-Rosen bimetric gravity for general homogeneous and isotropic backgrounds. In the de Sitter approximation, we obtain decoupled sets of massless and massive scalar gravitational fluctuations. Matter perturbations then evolve like in Einstein gravity. We perturb the future de Sitter regime by the ratio of matter to dark energy, producing quasi-de Sitter space. In this more general setting the massive and massless fluctuations mix. We argue that in the quasi-de Sitter regime, the growth of structure in bimetric gravity differs from that of Einstein gravity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Signatures of modified gravity on the 21 cm power spectrum at reionisation

Scalar modifications of gravity have an impact on the growth of structure. Baryon and Cold Dark Matter (CDM) perturbations grow anomalously for scales within the Compton wavelength of the scalar field. In the late time Universe when reionisation occurs, the spectrum of the 21 cm brightness temperature is thus affected. We study this effect for chameleon-f(R) models, dilatons and symmetrons. Although the f(R) models are more tightly constrained by solar system bounds, and effects on dilaton models are negligible, we find that symmetrons where the phase transition occurs before z{sub *} ∼ 12 could be detectable for a scalar field range as low as 5kpc. For all these models, the detection prospects of modified gravity effects are higher when considering modes parallel to the line of sight where very small scales can be probed. The study of the 21 cm spectrum thus offers a complementary approach to testing modified gravity with large scale structure surveys. Short scales, which would be highly non-linear in the very late time Universe when structure forms and where modified gravity effects are screened, appear in the linear spectrum of 21 cm physics, hence deviating from General Relativity in a maximal way.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Spherical collapse in Galileon gravity: fifth force solutions, halo mass function and halo bias

We study spherical collapse in the Quartic and Quintic Covariant Galileon gravity models within the framework of the excursion set formalism. We derive the nonlinear spherically symmetric equations in the quasi-static and weak-field limits, focusing on model parameters that fit current CMB, SNIa and BAO data. We demonstrate that the equations of the Quintic model do not admit physical solutions of the fifth force in high density regions, which prevents the study of structure formation in this model. For the Quartic model, we show that the effective gravitational strength deviates from the standard value at late times (z∼<1), becoming larger if the density is low, but smaller if the density is high. This shows that the Vainshtein mechanism at high densities is not enough to screen all of the modifications of gravity. This makes halos that collapse at z∼<1 feel an overall weaker gravity, which suppresses halo formation. However, the matter density in the Quartic model is higher than in standard ΛCDM, which boosts structure formation and dominates over the effect of the weaker gravity. In the Quartic model there is a significant overabundance of high-mass halos relative to ΛCDM. Dark matter halos are also less biased than in ΛCDM, with the difference increasing appreciably with halo mass. However, our results suggest that the bias may not be small enough to fully reconcile the predicted matter power spectrum with LRG clustering data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Further stable neutron star models from f(R) gravity

Neutron star models in perturbative f(R) gravity are considered with realistic equations of state. In particular, we consider the FPS, SLy and other equations of state and a case of piecewise equation of state for stars with quark cores. The mass-radius relations for f(R) = R+R(e{sup −R/R{sub 0}}−1) model and for R{sup 2} models with logarithmic and cubic corrections are obtained. In the case of R{sup 2} gravity with cubic corrections, we obtain that at high central densities (ρ > 10ρ{sub ns}, where ρ{sub ns} = 2.7 × 10{sup 14} g/cm{sup 3} is the nuclear saturation density), stable star configurations exist. The minimal radius of such stars is close to 9 km with maximal mass ∼ 1.9M{sub ⊙} (SLy equation). A similar situation takes place for AP4 and BSK20 EoS. Such an effect can give rise to more compact stars than in General Relativity. If observationally identified, such objects could constitute a formidable signature for modified gravity at astrophysical level. Another interesting result can be achieved in modified gravity with only a cubic correction. For some EoS, the upper limit of neutron star mass increases and therefore these EoS can describe realistic star configurations (although, in General Relativity, these EoS are excluded by observational constraints)

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Simultaneous effect of modified gravity and primordial non-Gaussianity in large scale structure observations

In this work we study the simultaneous effect of primordial non-Gaussianity and the modification of the gravity in f(R) framework on large scale structure observations. We show that non-Gaussianity and modified gravity introduce a scale dependent bias and growth rate functions. The deviation from ΛCDM in the case of primordial non-Gaussian models is in large scales, while the growth rate deviates from ΛCDM in small scales for modified gravity theories. We show that the redshift space distortion can be used to distinguish positive and negative f{sub NL} in standard background, while in f(R) theories they are not easily distinguishable. The galaxy power spectrum is generally enhanced in presence of non-Gaussianity and modified gravity. We also obtain the scale dependence of this enhancement. Finally we define galaxy growth rate and galaxy growth rate bias as new observational parameters to constrain cosmology.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Cosmological perturbations in unimodular gravity

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.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Extreme neutron stars from Extended Theories of Gravity

We discuss neutron stars with strong magnetic mean fields in the framework of Extended Theories of Gravity. In particular, we take into account models derived from f(R) and f(G) extensions of General Relativity where functions of the Ricci curvature invariant R and the Gauss-Bonnet invariant G are respectively considered. Dense matter in magnetic mean field, generated by magnetic properties of particles, is described by assuming a model with three meson fields and baryons octet. As result, the considerable increasing of maximal mass of neutron stars can be achieved by cubic corrections in f(R) gravity. In principle, massive stars with M > 4M{sub ☉} can be obtained. On the other hand, stable stars with high strangeness fraction (with central densities ρ{sub c} ∼ 1.5–2.0 GeV/fm{sup 3}) are possible considering quadratic corrections of f(G) gravity. The magnetic field strength in the star center is of order 6–8 × 10{sup 18} G. In general, we can say that other branches of massive neutron stars are possible considering the extra pressure contributions coming from gravity extensions. Such a feature can constitute both a probe for alternative theories and a way out to address anomalous self-gravitating compact systems.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Dynamical behavior in mimetic F(R) gravity

We investigate the cosmological behavior of mimetic F(R) gravity. This scenario is the F(R) extension of usual mimetic gravity classes, which are based on re-parametrizations of the metric using new, but not propagating, degrees of freedom, that can lead to a wider family of solutions. Performing a detailed dynamical analysis for exponential, power-law, and arbitrary F(R) forms, we extracted the corresponding critical points. Interestingly enough, we found that although the new features of mimetic F(R) gravity can affect the universe evolution at early and intermediate times, at late times they will not have any effect, and the universe will result at stable states that coincide with those of usual F(R) gravity. However, this feature holds for the late-time background evolution only. On the contrary, the behavior of the perturbations is expected to be different since the new term contributes to the perturbations even if it does not contribute at the background level.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Modified gravity inside astrophysical bodies

Many theories of modified gravity, including the well studied Horndeski models, are characterized by a screening mechanism that ensures that standard gravity is recovered near astrophysical bodies. In a recently introduced class of gravitational theories that goes beyond Horndeski, it has been found that new derivative interactions lead to a partial breaking of the Vainshtein screening mechanism inside any gravitational source, although not outside. We study the impact of this new type of deviation from standard gravity on the density profile of a spherically symmetric matter distribution, in the nonrelativistic limit. For simplicity, we consider a polytropic equation of state and derive the modifications to the standard Lane-Emden equations. We also show the existence of a universal upper bound on the amplitude of this type of modified gravity, independently of the details of the equation of state.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Can f(R) gravity contribute to (dark) radiation?

We discuss the possibility that suitable modifications of gravity could account for some amount of the radiation we observe today, in addition to the possibility of explaining the present speed up of the universe. We start introducing and reviewing cosmological reconstruction methods for metric f(R) theories of gravity that can be considered as one of the straightforward modifications of Einstein's gravity as soon as f(R)≠ R. We then take into account two possible f(R) models which could give rise to (dark) radiation. Constraints on the models are found by using the Planck Collaboration 2015 data within a cosmographic approach and by obtaining the matter power spectrum of those models. The conclusion is that f(R) gravity can only contribute minimally to the (dark) radiation to avoid departures from the observed matter power spectrum at the smallest scales (of the order of 0.01Mpc{sup −1}), i.e., precisely those scales that exited the horizon at the radiation dominated epoch. This result could strongly contribute to select reliable f(R) models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Lensing-induced morphology changes in CMB temperature maps in modified gravity theories

Lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) changes the morphology of pattern of temperature fluctuations, so topological descriptors such as Minkowski Functionals can probe the gravity model responsible for the lensing. We show how the recently introduced two-to-two and three-to-one kurt-spectra (and their associated correlation functions), which depend on the power spectrum of the lensing potential, can be used to probe modified gravity theories such as f ( R ) theories of gravity and quintessence models. We also investigate models based on effective field theory, which include the constant-Ω model, and low-energy Hořava theories. Estimates of the cumulative signal-to-noise for detection of lensing-induced morphology changes, reaches O(10{sup 3}) for the future planned CMB polarization mission COrE{sup +}. Assuming foreground removal is possible to ℓ{sub max}=3000, we show that many modified gravity theories can be rejected with a high level of significance, making this technique comparable in power to galaxy weak lensing or redshift surveys. These topological estimators are also useful in distinguishing lensing from other scattering secondaries at the level of the four-point function or trispectrum. Examples include the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect which shares, with lensing, a lack of spectral distortion. We also discuss the complication of foreground contamination from unsubtracted point sources.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Modified TOV in gravity’s rainbow: properties of neutron stars and dynamical stability conditions

In this paper, we consider a spherical symmetric metric to extract the hydrostatic equilibrium equation of stars in (3+1)-dimensional gravity’s rainbow in the presence of cosmological constant. Then, we generalize the hydrostatic equilibrium equation to d-dimensions and obtain the hydrostatic equilibrium equation for this gravity. Also, we obtain the maximum mass of neutron star using the modern equations of state of neutron star matter derived from the microscopic calculations. It is notable that, in this paper, we consider the effects of rainbow functions on the diagrams related to the mass-central mass density (M-ρ{sub c}) relation and also the mass-radius (M-R) relation of neutron star. We also study the effects of rainbow functions on the other properties of neutron star such as the Schwarzschild radius, average density, strength of gravity and gravitational redshift. Then, we apply the cosmological constant to this theory to obtain the diagrams of M-ρ{sub c} (or M-R) and other properties of these stars. Next, we investigate the dynamical stability condition for these stars in gravity’s rainbow and show that these stars have dynamical stability. We also obtain a relation between mass of neutron stars and Planck mass. In addition, we compare obtained results of this theory with the observational data.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

Hiding neutrino mass in modified gravity cosmologies

Cosmological observables show a dependence with the neutrino mass, which is partially degenerate with parameters of extended models of gravity. We study and explore this degeneracy in Horndeski generalized scalar-tensor theories of gravity. Using forecasted cosmic microwave background and galaxy power spectrum datasets, we find that a single parameter in the linear regime of the effective theory dominates the correlation with the total neutrino mass. For any given mass, a particular value of this parameter approximately cancels the power suppression due to the neutrino mass at a given redshift. The extent of the cancellation of this degeneracy depends on the cosmological large-scale structure data used at different redshifts. We constrain the parameters and functions of the effective gravity theory and determine the influence of gravity on the determination of the neutrino mass from present and future surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Speeding up N -body simulations of modified gravity: chameleon screening models

We describe and demonstrate the potential of a new and very efficient method for simulating certain classes of modified gravity theories, such as the widely studied f ( R ) gravity models. High resolution simulations for such models are currently very slow due to the highly nonlinear partial differential equation that needs to be solved exactly to predict the modified gravitational force. This nonlinearity is partly inherent, but is also exacerbated by the specific numerical algorithm used, which employs a variable redefinition to prevent numerical instabilities. The standard Newton-Gauss-Seidel iterative method used to tackle this problem has a poor convergence rate. Our new method not only avoids this, but also allows the discretised equation to be written in a form that is analytically solvable. We show that this new method greatly improves the performance and efficiency of f ( R ) simulations. For example, a test simulation with 512{sup 3} particles in a box of size 512 Mpc/ h is now 5 times faster than before, while a Millennium-resolution simulation for f ( R ) gravity is estimated to be more than 20 times faster than with the old method. Our new implementation will be particularly useful for running very high resolution, large-sized simulations which, to date, are only possible for the standard model, and also makes it feasible to run large numbers of lower resolution simulations for covariance analyses. We hope that the method will bring us to a new era for precision cosmological tests of gravity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

On the stability conditions for theories of modified gravity in the presence of matter fields

We present a thorough stability analysis of modified gravity theories in the presence of matter fields. We use the Effective Field Theory framework for Dark Energy and Modified Gravity to retain a general approach for the gravity sector and a Sorkin-Schutz action for the matter one. Then, we work out the proper viability conditions to guarantee in the scalar sector the absence of ghosts, gradient and tachyonic instabilities. The absence of ghosts can be achieved by demanding a positive kinetic matrix, while the lack of a gradient instability is ensured by imposing a positive speed of propagation for all the scalar modes. In case of tachyonic instability, the mass eigenvalues have been studied and we work out the appropriate expressions. For the latter, an instability occurs only when the negative mass eigenvalue is much larger, in absolute value, than the Hubble parameter. We discuss the results for the minimally coupled quintessence model showing for a particular set of parameters two typical behaviours which in turn lead to a stable and an unstable configuration. Moreover, we find that the speeds of propagation of the scalar modes strongly depend on matter densities, for the beyond Horndeski theories. Our findings can be directly employed when testing modified gravity theories as they allow to identify the correct viability space.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Neutron stars structure in the context of massive gravity

Motivated by the recent interests in spin−2 massive gravitons, we study the structure of neutron star in the context of massive gravity. The modifications of TOV equation in the presence of massive gravity are explored in 4 and higher dimensions. Next, by considering the modern equation of state for the neutron star matter (which is extracted by the lowest order constrained variational (LOCV) method with the AV18 potential), different physical properties of the neutron star (such as Le Chatelier's principle, stability and energy conditions) are investigated. It is shown that consideration of the massive gravity has specific contributions into the structure of neutron star and introduces new prescriptions for the massive astrophysical objects. The mass-radius relation is examined and the effects of massive gravity on the Schwarzschild radius, average density, compactness, gravitational redshift and dynamical stability are studied. Finally, a relation between mass and radius of neutron star versus the Planck mass is extracted.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

COLA with scale-dependent growth: applications to screened modified gravity models

We present a general parallelized and easy-to-use code to perform numerical simulations of structure formation using the COLA (COmoving Lagrangian Acceleration) method for cosmological models that exhibit scale-dependent growth at the level of first and second order Lagrangian perturbation theory. For modified gravity theories we also include screening using a fast approximate method that covers all the main examples of screening mechanisms in the literature. We test the code by comparing it to full simulations of two popular modified gravity models, namely f ( R ) gravity and nDGP, and find good agreement in the modified gravity boost-factors relative to ΛCDM even when using a fairly small number of COLA time steps.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Splashback in galaxy clusters as a probe of cosmic expansion and gravity

The splashback radius is a physical scale in dark matter halos that is set by the gravitational dynamics of recently accreted shells. We use analytical models and N-body simulations to study the dependence of splashback on dark energy and screened modified gravity theories. In modified gravity models, the transition from screened to unscreened regions typically occurs in the cluster outskirts, suggesting potentially observable signatures in the splashback feature. We investigate the location of splashback in both chameleon and Vainshtein screened models and find significant differences compared with ΛCDM predictions. We also observe an interesting interplay between dynamical friction and modified gravity, providing a distinctive signature for modified gravity models in the behavior of the splashback feature as a function of galaxy luminosity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗