Effective Gravitational Coupling Research Articles

De Sitter Local Thermodynamics in f(R) Gravity

We consider the local thermodynamics of the de Sitter state in the \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$f(\\mathcal{R})$$\\end{document} gravity. The local temperature, which is the same for all points of the de Sitter space, is \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T = H{\ ext{/}}\\pi $$\\end{document}, where H is the Hubble parameter. It is twice larger than the Gibbons–Hawking temperature of the cosmological horizon, \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${{T}_{{{\ ext{GH}}}}} = H{\ ext{/}}2\\pi $$\\end{document}. The local temperature is not related to the cosmological horizon. It determines the rate of the activation processes, which are possible in the de Sitter environment. The typical example is the process of the ionization of the atom in the de Sitter environment, which rate is determined by temperature \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T = H{\ ext{/}}\\pi $$\\end{document}. The local temperature determines the local entropy of the de Sitter vacuum state, and this allows to calculate the total entropy inside the cosmological horizon. The result reproduces the Gibbons–Hawking area law, which corresponds to the Wald entropy, \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${{S}_{{{\ ext{hor}}}}} = 4\\pi KA$$\\end{document}. Here, K is the effective gravitational coupling, \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$K = df{\ ext{/}}d\\mathcal{R}$$\\end{document}. In the local thermodynamic approach, K is the thermodynamic variable, which is conjugate to the Ricci scalar curvature \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\mathcal{R}$$\\end{document}. The holographic connection between the bulk entropy of the Hubble volume and the surface entropy of the cosmological horizon supports the suggestion that the de Sitter quantum vacuum is characterized by the local thermodynamics with the local temperature \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T = H{\ ext{/}}\\pi $$\\end{document}. The local temperature \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$T = H{\ ext{/}}\\pi $$\\end{document} of the de Sitter vacuum suggests that the de Sitter vacuum is locally unstable towards the creation of matter and its further heating. The decay of the de Sitter vacuum due to such processes determines the quantum breaking time of the space-times with positive cosmological constant.

Emergence of cosmic space in Tsallis modified gravity from equilibrium and non-equilibrium thermodynamic perspective

In the context of Tsallis entropy, we explore the connection between the law of emergence and the thermodynamic laws from a more accurate non-equilibrium perspective. Here, the equilibrium Clausius relation does not conform to the standard energy-momentum conservation. Therefore, an effective gravitational coupling is introduced to rewrite the field equation similar to general relativity, and the corresponding generalized continuity equation is obtained. As a result, thermodynamic laws were modified with the non-equilibrium energy dissipation and entropy production terms, using which we derive the law of emergence. The investigation of the law of emergence and the entropy maximization principle with Tsallis entropy in the non-equilibrium perspective shows that both result in the same constraints as obtained in other gravity theories and the equilibrium context of Tsallis entropy, except for an additional constraint on the Tsallis parameter as a result of extra entropy production. Consequently, the thermodynamic interpretation of the expansion of the universe stays valid even with quantum corrections to the horizon entropy since the correction terms in Tsallis entropy can be treated as the quantum corrections to Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.

Effective gravitational couplings of Kaluza-Klein gauge theories

We study the effective gravitational couplings of four-dimensional gauge theories with eight supercharges. The class of theories we analyse are arrived at via Kaluza-Klein compactification of five-dimensional gauge theories. We consider both pure SU(N) Yang-Mills theories with Chern-Simons couplings and the conformal gauge theories with 2N fundamental flavours. The resolvent of the gauge theory plays a crucial role in the calculation of these gravitational couplings. The results obtained from the Seiberg-Witten geometry are matched against independent computations using localisation.

Revisiting Vainshtein screening for fast N-body simulations

We revisit a method to incorporate the Vainshtein screening mechanism in N-body simulations proposed by R. Scoccimarro in [1]. We further extend this method to cover a subset of Horndeski theories that evade the bound on the speed of gravitational waves set by the binary neutron star merger GW170817. The procedure consists of the computation of an effective gravitational coupling that is time and scale dependent, G eff (k,z), where the scale dependence will incorporate the screening of the fifth-force. This is a fast procedure that when contrasted to the alternative of solving the full equation of motion for the scalar field inside N-body codes, reduces considerably the computational time and complexity required to run simulations. To test the validity of this approach in the non-linear regime, we have implemented it in a COmoving Lagrangian Approximation (COLA) N-body code, and ran simulations for two gravity models that have full N-body simulation outputs available in the literature, nDGP and Cubic Galileon. We validate the combination of the COLA method with this implementation of the Vainshtein mechanism with full N-body simulations for predicting the boost function: the ratio between the modified gravity non-linear matter power spectrum and its General Relativity counterpart. This quantity is of great importance for building emulators in beyond-ΛCDM models, and we find that the method described in this work has an agreement of below 2% for scales down to k ≈ 3h/Mpc with respect to full N-body simulations.

Neutron stars in modified teleparallel gravity

We investigate compact objects in modified teleparallel gravity with realistic equations of state. We propose a modification of Teleparallel Equivalent to General Relativity, then an appropriate tetrad is applied to the field equations. A specific set of relations showing an equivalency between our gravitational model and the New General Relativity is found. The conservation equation implies that our Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equations are presented with an effective gravitational coupling constant. Numerical analysis using realistic equations of state is made, and the behavior of mass, radius, and the relation mass-radius as functions of a free parameter of our model is also investigated.

Effective gravitational couplings of higher-rank supersymmetric gauge theories

When placed on four-manifolds, mathcal{N} = 2 gauge theories couple to topological invariants of the background via two functions A and B. General considerations allow for these functions to be fixed in terms of the Coulomb moduli and other parameters in the theory, but only up to multiplicative factors about which little is known. We extend earlier work on the microscopic study of these functions in the Ω-background to mathcal{N} = 2* gauge theories with higher-rank U(N) gauge groups. We complement this analysis by carrying out a perturbative study of these functions. This allows us to determine the manner in which these multiplicative factors scale with the rank of the gauge group and the mass of the adjoint hypermultiplet.

Coupled dark energy model inspired from general conformal transformation

We study the coupled dark energy model constructed from the general conformal transformation in which the coefficient of the conformal transformation depends on both the scalar field and its kinetic term. Under this conformal transformation, the action for subclass of Degenerate Higher-Order Scalar-Tensor (DHOST) theories is related to the Einstein-Hilbert action. The evolution of the background universe has the scaling fixed point which corresponds to acceleration of the universe at late time. For the choices of parameters which make the late-time scaling point stable, the fixed point corresponding to $\phi$-matter-dominated-era ($\phi$MDE) is a saddle point, and the universe can evolve from radiation dominated epoch through $\phi$MDE before reaching the scaling point at late time with the cosmological parameters which satisfy the observational bound. During the $\phi$MDE, the effective equation of state parameter is slightly positive, so that one of possible mechanisms for alleviating the $H_0$ tension can be achieved. In this coupled dark energy model, the effective gravitational coupling for dark matter perturbations on small scales can be smaller than that in the $\Lambda$CDM model. Therefore a growth rate of the dark matter perturbations is suppressed compare with the $\Lambda$CDM model, which implies that the $\sigma_8$ tension could be alleviated.

A designer approach to f(Q) gravity and cosmological implications

We investigate the evolution of linear perturbations in the Symmetric Teleparallel Gravity, namely $f(Q)$ gravity, for which we design the $f(Q)$ function to match specific expansion histories. We consider different evolutions of the effective dark energy equation of state, $w_Q(a)$, which includes $w_Q=-1$, a constant $w_Q \neq -1$ and a fast varying equation of state. We identify clear patterns in the effective gravitational coupling, which accordingly modifies the linear growth of large scale structures. We provide theoretical predictions for the product of the growth rate $\tilde{f}$ and the root mean square of matter fluctuations $\sigma_8$, namely $\tilde{f}\sigma_8$ and for the sign of the cross-correlation power spectrum of the galaxy fluctuations and the cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropies. These properties can be used to distinguish the $f(Q)$ gravity from the standard cosmological model using accurate cosmological observations.

The effective field theory of vector-tensor theories

We investigate a systematic formulation of vector-tensor theories based on the effective field theory (EFT) approach. The input of our EFT is that the spacetime symmetry is spontaneously broken by the existence of a preferred timelike direction in accordance with the cosmological principle. After clarifying the difference of the symmetry breaking pattern from the conventional EFT of inflation/dark energy, we find an EFT description of vector-tensor theories around the cosmological background. This approach not only serves as a unified description of vector-tensor theories but also highlights universal differences between the scalar-tensor theories and the vector-tensor theories. The theories having different symmetry breaking patterns are distinguished by a phenomenological function and consistency relations between the EFT coefficients. We study the linear cosmological perturbations within our EFT framework and discuss the characteristic properties of the vector-tensor theories in the context of dark energy. In particular, we compute the effective gravitational coupling and the slip parameter for the matter density contrast in terms of the EFT coefficients.

Non-minimal geometry–matter couplings in Weyl–Cartan space–times: f(R,T,Q,Tm) gravity

We consider an extension of standard General Relativity in which the Hilbert-Einstein action is replaced by an arbitrary function of the Ricci scalar, nonmetricity, torsion, and the trace of the matter energy-momentum tensor. By construction, the action involves a non-minimal coupling between matter and geometry. The field equations of the model are obtained, and they lead to the nonconservation of the matter energy-momentum tensor. A thermodynamic interpretation of the nonconservation of the energy-momentum tensor is also developed in the framework of the thermodynamics of the irreversible processes in open systems. The Newtonian limit of the theory is considered, and the generalized Poisson equation is obtained in the low velocity and weak fields limits. The nonmetricity, the Weyl vector, and the matter couplings generate an effective gravitational coupling in the Poisson equation. We investigate the cosmological implications of the theory for two different choices of the gravitational action, corresponding to an additive and a multiplicative algebraic structure of the function $f$, respectively. We obtain the generalized Friedmann equations, and we compare the theoretical predictions with the observational data. \te{We find that the cosmological models can give a good descriptions of the observations up to a redshift of $z=2$, and, for some cases, up to a redshift of $z=3$.

Difficulties in reconciling non-negligible differences between the local and cosmological values of the gravitational coupling in extended Brans-Dicke theories

Recent studies by Solà Peracaula, Gómez-Valent, de Cruz Pérez and Moreno-Pulido (2019,2020) have pointed out the intriguing possibility that Brans-Dicke cosmology with constant vacuum energy density (BD-ΛCDM) may be able to alleviate the H 0 and σ 8 tensions that are found in the framework of the concordance cosmological model (GR-ΛCDM). The fitting analyses presented in these works indicate a preference for values of the effective gravitational coupling appearing in the Friedmann equation, G, about 4–9% larger than Newton's constant (as measured on Earth), and mildly evolving with the expansion of the universe. The signal reaches the ∼ 3.5σ c.l. when the prior on H 0 from SH0ES and the angular diameter distances to strong gravitationally lensed quasars measured by H0LICOW are considered, and the ∼ 3σ c.l. when only the former is included. Thus, the improvement in the description of the cosmological datasets relies on the existence of a mechanism capable of screening the modified gravity effects at those scales where deviations from standard General Relativity (GR) are highly constrained, as in the Solar System. In this paper we explore several extensions of BD-ΛCDM that can leave the cosmological evolution basically unaltered at the background and linear perturbations level, while being able to screen the Brans-Dicke effects inside the regions of interest, leading to standard GR. We search for weak-field solutions around spherical static massive objects with no internal pressure and show that, unfortunately, these mechanisms can only explain very tiny departures of the effective cosmological gravitational coupling from the one measured locally. This might hinder the ability of BD-ΛCDM to alleviate the cosmological tensions.

Stealth dark energy in scordatura DHOST theory

A stealth de Sitter solution in scalar-tensor theories has an exact de Sitter background metric and a nontrivial scalar field profile. Recently, in the context of Degenerate Higher-Order Scalar-Tensor (DHOST) theories it was shown that stealth de Sitter solutions suffer from either infinite strong coupling or gradient instability for scalar field perturbations. The sound speed squared is either vanishing or negative. In the first case, the strong coupling scale is zero and thus lower than the energy scale of any physical phenomena. From the viewpoint of effective field theory, this issue is naturally resolved by introducing a controlled detuning of the degeneracy condition dubbed scordatura, recovering a version of ghost condensation. In this paper we construct a viable dark energy model in the scordatura DHOST theory based on a stealth cosmological solution, in which the metric is the same as in the standard ΛCDM model and the scalar field profile is linearly time-dependent. We show that the scordatura mechanism resolves the strong coupling and gradient instability. Further, we find that the scordatura is also necessary to make the quasi-static limit well-defined, which implies that the subhorizon observables are inevitably affected by the scordatura. We derive the effective gravitational coupling and the correction to the friction term for the subhorizon evolution of the linear dark matter energy density contrast as well as the Weyl potential and the gravitational slip parameter. In the absence of the scordatura, the quasi-static approximation would break down at all scales around stealth cosmological solutions even if the issue of the infinite strong coupling is unjustly disregarded. Therefore previous estimations of the subhorizon evolution of matter density contrast in modified gravity in the literature need to be revisited by taking into account the scordatura effect.

Dark D-brane cosmology: From background evolution to cosmological perturbations

We study the cosmological predictions of the dark D-brane model, in which dark matter resides on a D-brane moving in a higher-dimensional space. By construction, dark matter interacts only gravitationally with the standard model sector in this framework. The dark energy scalar field is associated with the position of the D-brane, and its dynamics is encoded in a Dirac-Born-Infeld action. On the other hand, dark matter is identified with matter on the D-brane, that naturally couples to dark energy \textit{via} a disformal coupling. We analyse the numerical evolution of the cosmological background, highlighting the fact that there are two regimes of interest: one, in which the coupling is positive throughout; and another, in which the coupling is negative at the present. In the latter, there is the enticing possibility of having scenarios in which the coupling is positive for a significant part of the evolution, before decreasing towards negative values. In both cases, the coupling is very small at early times, and only starts to grow during the late matter dominated era. We also derive the equations for the linear cosmological perturbations, an expression for the effective time-dependent gravitational coupling between dark matter particles and present the numerical results for the CMB anisotropy and matter power spectra. This allows for a direct comparison of the predictions for the growth of large scale structure with other disformal quintessence models.

General formulation of cosmological perturbations in scalar-tensor dark energy coupled to dark matter

For a scalar field ϕ coupled to cold dark matter (CDM), we provide a general framework for studying the background and perturbation dynamics on the isotropic cosmological background. The dark energy sector is described by a Horndeski Lagrangian with the speed of gravitational waves equivalent to that of light, whereas CDM is dealt as a perfect fluid characterized by the number density nc and four-velocity ucμ. For a very general interacting Lagrangian f(nc, ϕ, X, Z), where f depends on nc, ϕ, X=−∂μ ϕ ∂μ ϕ/2, and Z=ucμ ∂μ ϕ, we derive the full linear perturbation equations of motion without fixing any gauge conditions. To realize a vanishing CDM sound speed for the successful structure formation, the interacting function needs to be of the form f=−f1(ϕ, X, Z)nc+f2(ϕ, X, Z). Employing a quasi-static approximation for the modes deep inside the sound horizon, we obtain analytic formulas for the effective gravitational couplings of CDM and baryon density perturbations as well as gravitational and weak lensing potentials. We apply our general formulas to several interacting theories and show that, in many cases, the CDM gravitational coupling around the quasi de-Sitter background can be smaller than the Newton constant G due to a momentum transfer induced by the Z-dependence in f2.

Growth of non-linear structures and spherical collapse in the Galileon Ghost Condensate model

We present a detailed study of the collapse of a spherical matter overdensity and the non-linear growth of large scale structures in the Galileon ghost condensate (GGC) model. This model is an extension of the cubic covariant Galileon (G3) which includes a field derivative of type $(\nabla_\mu\phi\nabla^\mu\phi)^2$ in the Lagrangian. We find that the cubic term activates the modifications in the main physical quantities whose time evolution is then strongly affected by the additional term. Indeed, the GGC model shows largely mitigated effects in the linearised critical density contrast, non-linear effective gravitational coupling and the virial overdensity with respect to G3 but still preserves peculiar features with respect to the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model, e.g. both the linear critical density contrast and the virial overdensity are larger than those in $\Lambda$CDM. The results of the spherical collapse model are then used to predict the evolution of the halo mass function, non-linear matter and lensing power spectra. While at low masses the GGC model presents about 10% fewer objects with respect to $\Lambda$CDM, at higher masses for $z>0$ it predicts 10% ($z=0.5$)-20% ($z=1$) more objects per comoving volume. Using a phenomenological approach to include the screening effect in the matter power spectrum, we show that the difference induced by the modifications of gravity are strongly dependent on the screening scale and that differences can be up to 20% with respect to $\Lambda$CDM. These differences translate to the lensing power spectrum where qualitatively the largest differences with respect to the standard cosmological model are for $\ell<10^3$. Depending on the screening scale, they can be up to 25% on larger angular scales and then decrease for growing $\ell$. These results are obtained for the best fit parameters from linear cosmological data for each model.

Effective gravitational couplings of four-dimensional mathcal{N} = 2 supersymmetric gauge theories

The low energy effective couplings of a four-dimensional mathcal{N} = 2 supersymmetric gauge theory to topological invariants of the background gravitational field are described by two functions A and B. These two functions play an important role in the study of topo- logically twisted four-dimensional mathcal{N} = 2 supersymmetric gauge theories and in the computation of central charges of mathcal{N} = 2 superconformal theories. In this paper, we compute A and B from the partition function in the Ω-background for SU(2) gauge theories. Our results not only confirm the predicted expressions of the effective gravitational couplings, but also give the previously undetermined overall multiplicative factors. We also analyze A and B for the SU(N ) super-Yang-Mills theory, and confirm all the previous predictions.

Scaling solutions and weak gravity in dark energy with energy and momentum couplings

We argue that the ΛCDM tensions of the Hubble-Lemaȋtre expansion rate H0 and the clustering normalization σ8 can be eased, at least in principle, by considering an interaction between dark energy and dark matter in such a way to induce a small and positive early effective equation of state and a weaker gravity. For a dark energy scalar field ϕ interacting with dark matter through an exchange of both energy and momentum, we derive a general form of the Lagrangian allowing for the presence of scaling solutions. In a subclass of such interacting theories, we show the existence of a scaling ϕ-matter-dominated-era (ϕMDE) which can potentially alleviate the H0 tension by generating an effective high-redshift equation of state. We also study the evolution of perturbations for a model with ϕMDE followed by cosmic acceleration and find that the effective gravitational coupling relevant to the linear growth of large-scale structures can be smaller than the Newton gravitational constant G at low redshifts. The momentum exchange between dark energy and dark matter plays a crucial role for realizing weak gravity, while the energy transfer is also required for the existence of ϕMDE.

Weak cosmic growth in coupled dark energy with a Lagrangian formulation

We investigate a dark energy scenario in which a canonical scalar field ϕ is coupled to the four velocity ucμ of cold dark matter (CDM) through a derivative interaction ucμ∂μϕ. The coupling is described by an interacting Lagrangian f(X,Z), where f depends on X=−∂μϕ∂μϕ/2 and Z=ucμ∂μϕ. We derive stability conditions of linear scalar perturbations for the wavelength deep inside the Hubble radius and show that the effective CDM sound speed is close to 0 as in the standard uncoupled case, while the scalar-field propagation speed is affected by the interacting term f. Under a quasi-static approximation, we also obtain a general expression of the effective gravitational coupling felt by the CDM perturbation. We study the late-time cosmological dynamics for the coupling f∝X(2−m)/2Zm and show that the gravitational coupling weaker than the Newton constant can be naturally realized for m>0 on scales relevant to the growth of large-scale structures. This allows the possibility for alleviating the tension of σ8 between low- and high-redshift measurements.

Scalar-field dark energy nonminimally and kinetically coupled to dark matter

We provide a general framework for studying the dark energy cosmology in which a scalar field $\phi$ is nonminimally and kinetically coupled to Cold Dark Matter (CDM). The scalar-graviton sector is described by the action of Horndeski theories with the speed of gravitational waves equivalent to that of light, whereas CDM is treated as a perfect fluid given by a Schutz-Sorkin action. We consider two interacting Lagrangians of the forms $f_1(\phi,X)\rho_c (n_c)$ and $f_2 (n_c, \phi,X) J_c^{\mu} \partial_{\mu}\phi$, where $X=-\partial^{\mu} \phi \partial_{\mu} \phi/2$, $\rho_c$ and $n_c$ are the energy density and number density of CDM respectively, and $J_c^{\mu}$ is a vector field related to the CDM four velocity. We derive the scalar perturbation equations of motion without choosing any special gauges and identify conditions for the absence of ghosts and Laplacian instabilities on scales deep inside the sound horizon. Applying a quasi-static approximation in a gauge-invariant manner, we also obtain the effective gravitational couplings felt by CDM and baryons for the modes relevant to the linear growth of large-scale structures. In particular, the $n_c$ dependence in the coupling $f_2$ gives rise to an interesting possibility for realizing the gravitational coupling with CDM weaker than the Newton gravitational constant $G$.

Dark energy, the swampland, and the equivalence principle

It has recently been argued that string theory does not admit de Sitter vacua. This would imply that the current accelerated expansion of the universe is not driven by a cosmological constant (or vacuum energy) but by other means such as a quintessential scalar field. Such a scalar field is in general expected to couple to at least some matter species, such as dark matter. Cosmological observations already constrain such dark matter couplings strongly. We argue that there are a number of interesting scenarios to be explored, such as coupling functions which possess a minimum at finite field values. In these theories, the effective gravitational coupling between dark matter particles grows with time and are consistent with observations of the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation and large scale structures. We argue that such couplings might also help to alleviate the tension between the swampland conjectures and the properties of the quintessential potential. Observational signatures of violations of the equivalence principle in the dark sector are expected in the non-linear regime on intermediate or small scales.