Ippocratis D. Saltas

Beyond ΛCDM: Problems, solutions, and the road ahead

Despite its continued observational successes, there is a persistent (and growing) interest in extending cosmology beyond the standard model, ΛCDM. This is motivated by a range of apparently serious theoretical issues, involving such questions as the cosmological constant problem, the particle nature of dark matter, the validity of general relativity on large scales, the existence of anomalies in the CMB and on small scales, and the predictivity and testability of the inflationary paradigm. In this paper, we summarize the current status of ΛCDM as a physical theory, and review investigations into possible alternatives along a number of different lines, with a particular focus on highlighting the most promising directions. While the fundamental problems are proving reluctant to yield, the study of alternative cosmologies has led to considerable progress, with much more to come if hopes about forthcoming high-precision observations and new theoretical ideas are fulfilled.

Observables and unobservables in dark energy cosmologies

The aim of this paper is to answer the following two questions: (1) Given cosmological observations of the expansion history and linear perturbations in a range of redshifts and scales as precise as is required, which of the properties of dark energy could actually be reconstructed without imposing any parameterization? (2) Are these observables sufficient to rule out not just a particular dark energy model, but the entire general class of viable models comprising a single scalar field? This paper bears both good and bad news. On one hand, we find that the goal of reconstructing dark energy models is fundamentally limited by the unobservability of the present values of the matter density Omega_m0, the perturbation normalization sigma_8 as well as the present matter power spectrum. On the other, we find that, under certain conditions, cosmological observations can nonetheless rule out the entire class of the most general single scalar-field models, i.e. those based on the Horndeski Lagrangian.

Anisotropic Stress as a Signature of Nonstandard Propagation of Gravitational Waves

We make precise the heretofore ambiguous statement that anisotropic stress is a sign of a modification of gravity. We show that in cosmological solutions of very general classes of models extending gravity-all scalar-tensor theories (Horndeski), Einstein-aether models, and bimetric massive gravity-a direct correspondence exists between perfect fluids apparently carrying anisotropic stress and a modification in the propagation of gravitational waves. Since the anisotropic stress can be measured in a model-independent manner, a comparison of the behavior of gravitational waves from cosmological sources with large-scale-structure formation could, in principle, lead to new constraints on the theory of gravity.

A note on classical and quantum unimodular gravity

We discuss unimodular gravity at a classical level, and in terms of its extension into the UV through an appropriate path integral representation. Classically, unimodular gravity is locally a gauge fixed version of general relativity (GR), and as such it yields identical dynamics and physical predictions. We clarify this and explain why there is no sense in which it can “bring a new perspective” to the cosmological constant problem. The quantum equivalence between unimodular gravity and GR is more of a subtle question, but we present an argument that suggests one can always maintain the equivalence up to arbitrarily high momenta. As a corollary to this, we argue, whenever inequivalence is seen at the quantum level, that just means we have defined two different quantum theories that happen to share a classical limit. We also present a number of alternative formulations for a covariant unimodular action, some of which have not appeared, to our knowledge, in the literature before.

Asymptotically safe Starobinsky inflation

We revisit Starobinsky inflation in a quantum gravitational context, by means of the exact renormalization group (RG). We calculate the nonperturbative beta functions for Newton’s “constant” G and the dimensionless R^2 coupling, and show that there exists an attractive UV fixed point where the latter one vanishes but not the former one, and we provide the corresponding beta functions. The smallness of the R^2 coupling, required for agreement with inflationary observables, is naturally ensured by its vanishing at the UV fixed point, ensuring the smallness of the primordial fluctuations, as well as providing a theoretical motivation for the initial conditions needed for successful inflation in this context. We discuss the corresponding RG dynamics, showing both how inflationary and classical observations define the renormalization conditions for the couplings, and also how the UV regime is connected with lower energies along the RG flow. Finally, we discuss the consistency of our results when higher-order curvature corrections are included, and show that they are robust to the inclusion of R^3 corrections.

Consistent perturbations in an imperfect fluid

We present a new prescription for analysing cosmological perturbations in a more-general class of scalar-field dark-energy models where the energy-momentum tensor has an imperfect-fluid form. This class includes Brans-Dicke models, f(R) gravity, theories with kinetic gravity braiding and generalised galileons. We employ the intuitive language of fluids, allowing us to explicitly maintain a dependence on physical and potentially measurable properties. We demonstrate that hydrodynamics is not always a valid description for describing cosmological perturbations in general scalar-field theories and present a consistent alternative that nonetheless utilises the fluid language.We apply this approach explicitly to a worked example: k-essence non-minimally coupled to gravity. This is the simplest case which captures the essential new features of these imperfect-fluid models. We demonstrate the generic existence of a new scale separating regimes where the fluid is perfect and imperfect. We obtain the equations for the evolution of dark-energy density perturbations in both these regimes. The model also features two other known scales: the Compton scale related to the breaking of shift symmetry and the Jeans scale which we show is determined by the speed of propagation of small scalar-field perturbations, i.e. causality, as opposed to the frequently used definition of the ratio of the pressure and energy-density perturbations.

UV structure of quantum unimodular gravity

It is a well known result that any formulation of unimodular gravity is classically equivalent to General Relativity (GR), however a debate exists in the literature about this equivalence at the quantum level. In this work, we investigate the UV quantum structure of a diffeomorphism invariant formulation of unimodular gravity using functional renormalisation group methods in a Wilsonian context. We show that the effective action of the unimodular theory acquires essentially the same form with that of GR in the UV, as well as that both theories share similar UV completions within the framework of the asymptotic safety scenario for quantum gravity. Furthermore, we find that in this context the unimodular theory can appear to be non--predictive due to an increasing number of relevant couplings at high energies, and explain how this unwanted feature is in the end avoided.

Probing Dark Energy through Scale Dependence

We consider the consequences of having no prior knowledge of the true dark energy model for the interpretation of cosmological observations. The magnitude of redshift-space distortions and weak-lensing shear is determined by the metric on the geodesics of which galaxies and light propagate. We show that, given precise enough observations, we can use these data to completely reconstruct the metric on our past lightcone and therefore to measure the scale- and time-dependence of the anisotropic stress and the evolution of the gravitational potentials in a model-independent manner. Since both dark matter and dark energy affect the visible sector only through the gravitational field they produce, they are inseparable without a model for dark energy: galaxy bias cannot be measured and therefore the distribution of dark matter determined; the peculiar velocity of dark matter can be identified with that of the galaxies only when the equivalence principle holds. Given these limitations, we show how one can nonetheless build tests for classes of dark energy models which depend on making measurements at multiple scales at a particular redshift. They are null tests on the model-independent observables, do not require modeling evolution in time and do not require any parametrization of the free functions of these models, such as the sound speed. We show how one can rule out or constrain the whole class of the most-general scalar-tensor theories even without assuming the quasi-static limit.

Nonstandard gravitational waves imply gravitational slip: On the difficulty of partially hiding new gravitational degrees of freedom

In many generalized models of gravity, perfect fluids in cosmology give rise to gravitational slip. Simultaneously, in very broad classes of such models, the propagation of gravitational waves is altered. We investigate the extent to which there is a one-to-one relationship between these two properties in three classes of models with one extra degree of freedom: scalar (Horndeski and beyond), vector (Einstein-Aether) and tensor (bimetric). We prove that in bimetric gravity and Einstein-Aether, it is impossible to dynamically hide the gravitational slip on all scales whenever the propagation of gravitational waves is modified. Horndeski models are much more flexible, but it is nonetheless only possible to hide gravitational slip dynamically when the action for perturbations is tuned to evolve in time toward a divergent kinetic term. These results provide an explicit, theoretical argument for the interpretation of future observations if they disfavoured the presence of gravitational slip.

Direct detection of gravitational waves can measure the time variation of the Planck mass

The recent discovery of a