Dynamical system analysis of cosmological evolution in the Aether scalar tensor theory

Abstract

The Aether Scalar Tensor (AeST) theory is an extension of General Relativity (GR), proposed for addressing galactic and cosmological observations without dark matter.The action for the theory includes a function that can currently only be constrained by phenomenological considerations. In antecedent work, forms of this function were considered that led to an effective fluid contribution to the cosmological evolution equations that approximated that of dust more and more closely at late cosmic times. In this work we consider an alternative set of functions that most closely approximate dust at the earliest cosmic times and where deviations from dust-like behaviour gradually emerge with time. We use the dynamical system formalism to analyze example models from both possible sets of functions, introducing a complete set of dynamical variables describing the spacetime curvature, energy density parameters of different matter components, and AeST scalar field, and obtain the dynamical equations describing cosmological evolution. The cosmological phase space is found to feature invariant submanifolds associated to the absence of the matter components, as well as equilibrium states associated with well-known cosmological behaviors e.g. matter, radiation, and cosmological constant dominated epochs. A full numerical integration of the dynamical system is performed for the models and it is shown that each can closely approximate the $\Lambda \mathrm{CDM}$ model at the level of the cosmic background. Generalizations of the models are considered and it is shown that the new models likely can simultaneously replicate the cosmological successes of cold dark matter whilst satisfying constraints on the theory from the weak-field quasistatic regime.