Galileon Model Research Articles

Reviving Horndeski after GW170817 by Kaluza-Klein compactifications

The application of Horndeski theory/Galileons for late time cosmology is heavily constrained by the strict coincidence in the speed of propagation of gravitational and electromagnetic waves. These constraints presuppose that the minimally coupled photon is not modified, not even at the scales where General Relativity (GR) may need modification. We find that the 4D Galileon obtained from a Kaluza-Klein compactification of its higher dimensional version is a natural simultaneous modification of GR and electromagnetism with automatically “luminal” gravitational waves. This property follows without any fine tuning of Galileon potentials for a larger class of theories than previously thought. In particular, the G4 potential is not constrained by the speed test and G5 may also be present. In other words, some Galileon models that have been ruled out since the event GW170817 are, in fact, not necessarily constrained if they arise in 4D from compactifications of their higher dimensional Galileon counterparts. Besides their compelling luminality, the resulting vector Galileons are naturally U(1) gauge invariant. We also argue that the Vainshtein screening that allows to recover GR predictions for solar system tests is also at work for electrodynamics in the dense region of laboratory tests.

Simulating a numerical UV completion of quartic Galileons

The Galileon theory is a prototypical effective field theory that incorporates the Vainshtein screening mechanism—a feature that arises in some extensions of general relativity, such as massive gravity. The Vainshtein effect requires that the theory contain higher order derivative interactions, which results in Galileons, and theories like them, failing to be technically well posed. While this is not a fundamental issue when the theory is correctly treated as an effective field theory, it nevertheless poses significant practical problems when numerically simulating this model. These problems can be tamed using a number of different approaches: introducing an active low-pass filter and/or constructing a UV completion at the level of the equations of motion, which controls the high momentum modes. These methods have been tested on cubic Galileon interactions, and have been shown to reproduce the correct low-energy behavior. Here we show how the numerical UV-completion method can be applied to quartic Galileon interactions, and present the first simulations of the quartic Galileon model using this technique. We demonstrate that our approach can probe physics in the regime of the effective field theory in which the quartic term dominates, while successfully reproducing the known results for cubic interactions. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Scalar radiation with a quartic Galileon

The class of Galileon scalar fields theories encapsulate the Vainshtein screening mechanism, which is characteristic of a large range of infrared modified theories of gravity. Such theories can lead to testable departures from general relativity through fifth forces and new scalar modes of gravitational radiation. However, the inherent nonlinearity of the Vainshtein mechanism has limited analytic attempts to describe Galileon theories with both cubic and quartic interactions. To improve on this, we perform direct numerical simulations of the quartic Galileon model for a rotating binary source and infer the power spectrum of given multipoles. To tame numerical instabilities we utilize a low-pass filter, extending previous work on the cubic Galileon. Our findings show that the multipole expansion is well defined and under control. Moreover, our results confirm that despite being a nonlinear scalar, the dominant Galileon radiation is quadrupole, and we find a new scaling behavior deep inside the Vainshtein region. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Stability of nonsingular cosmologies in Galileon models with torsion: A no-go theorem for eternal subluminality

Generic models in Galileons or Horndeski theory do not have cosmological solutions that are free of instabilities and singularities in the entire time of evolution. We extend this no-go theorem to a spacetime with torsion. On this more general geometry the no-go argument now holds provided the additional hypothesis that the graviton is also subluminal throughout the entire evolution. Thus, critically different for Galileons’ stability on a torsionful spacetime, an arguably unphysical although arbitrarily short (deep UV) phase occurring at an arbitrary time, when the speed of gravity (cg) is slightly higher than luminal (c), and by at least an amount cg≥2c, can lead to an all-time linearly stable and nonsingular cosmology. As a proof of principle we build a stable model for a cosmological bounce that is almost always subluminal, where the short-lived superluminal phase occurs before the bounce, and that transits to general relativity in the asymptotic past and future. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Tadpole cosmology: Milne solution as a cosmological constant hideout

Dynamical cancellation frameworks present a potential means of mitigating the effect of a large vacuum energy, that would otherwise ruin the late-time, low energy dynamics of the Universe. Certain models in the literature, such as the Fab Four and Well Tempering, realize this idea by introducing some degeneracy in the dynamical equations. In this paper, we introduce a third potential route to self-tuning, and infer the existence of a new, exact Milne solution in the simplest tadpole plus cubic-Galileon scalar-tensor theory. We study the dynamics of the scalar field and metric in the vicinity of the Milne coordinate singularity, and find that the vacuum solution belongs to a more general family of Milne-like metrics. By numerically evolving the field equations for a range of initial conditions, we show that the Milne solution is not an attractor, and varying the initial scalar field data can lead to completely different asymptotic states; exponential growth of the scale factor, a static non-spatially flat metric or a severe finite-time instability in the scalar field and metric. We generalise the Milne solution to a class of FLRW spacetimes, finding that the tadpole-cubic Galileon model admits perfect-fluid-like solutions in the presence of matter. Finally, we present a second Horndeski model which also admits an exact Milne solution, hinting at the existence of a larger undiscovered model space containing vacuum-energy-screened solutions.

Global asymptotic dynamics of the cubic galileon interacting with dark matter

In this paper we perform a thorough dynamical systems analysis of the cubic galileon model non-minimally coupled to the dark matter. Three well-known classes of interacting models are considered where the energy exchange between the dark components is a function of the dark matter density and of the dark energy density: $Q_1=3\alpha H\rho_m$, $Q_2=3\beta\rho_m\dot{\phi}$ and $Q_3=3 \epsilon H \rho_\phi$, respectively. We are able to show the global asymptotic dynamics of the model for the exponential potential in a homogeneous and isotropic background. The cosmological implications of the proposed scenarios are explored and it is found that, in addition to the appearance of new equilibrium configurations that do not appear neither in the non-interacting cubic galileon model nor in the interacting quintessence model, there is a significant impact of the non-minimal coupling through modification of the stability properties of the critical points. The resulting cosmological scenario provides a bigbang origin of the cosmic expansion, an early transient stage of inflationary expansion, as well as matter-scaling late time stable state of the universe, among other solutions of lesser cosmological interest. This work extends previous studies of coupled dark energy to a broader class of gravitational theories.

On extended supersymmetry of 4d Galileons and 3-brane effective actions

We use on-shell amplitude methods to systematically analyze the possibility of extended supersymmetry for 4d Galileon models, expanding on previous mathcal{N} = 1 results. Assuming spins ≤ 1, we prove that there exists no mathcal{N} = 4 supersymmetric extension of 4d Galileons with a single vector multiplet. Thus the Galileons cannot be part of the effective action of a single flat maximally supersymmetric D3-brane, and that explains why such terms do not appear in the α′-expansion of the abelian open superstring amplitude. For mathcal{N} = 2 Galileons, we show that the complex scalar Z = ϕ + iχ of the vector supermultiplet cannot have ϕ and χ both enjoy enhanced shift symmetry; instead, χ can at best be an R-axion with constant shift symmetry. Using the soft bootstrap, we demonstrate that the quartic DBI-Galileon is incompatible with mathcal{N} = 2 supersymmetry. A similar analysis performed at 7-point shows that a 2-parameter family of mathcal{N} = 2 supersymmetric quintic Galileons coupled with DBI passes the soft bootstrap. Finally, we show how supersymmetric couplings between Galileons and gravitons arise in generalizations of our constructions, and we conclude with a discussion of Galileons and DBI-Galileons in the context of UV-completability vs. the Swampland.

Numerical implementation of the Cubic Galileon model in pinocchio

ABSTRACT We present a perturbative treatment of non-linear galaxy clustering in the context of the cubic Galileon modified gravity model, in terms of second-order Lagrangian Perturbation theory and an extension of ellipsoidal collapse that includes Vainshtein screening. We numerically implement such prescriptions in the approximate pinocchio code, and use it to generate realizations of the matter density field and halo catalogues with different prescriptions for ellipsoidal collapse. We investigate the impact of three different approximations in the computation of collapse times on the halo mass function, halo bias, and matter power spectrum. In the halo mass function, both the modified gravity effect and the screening effect are significant in the high-mass end, similar to what is found for other MG models. We perform a comparison with N-body simulations to assess the validity of our approach, and show that we can reproduce the same trend observed in simulations for all quantities considered. With a simple modification to the grouping algorithm of pinocchio to take into account the gravity modification, and without the need to re-calibrate the algorithm, we show that we can reproduce the linear halo bias and the mildly non-linear matter power spectrum of simulations with good accuracy, especially for the implementation with Vainshtein screening. We stress that, while approximate, our method is orders of magnitude faster than a full N-body simulation, making it an optimal tool for the quick generation of large sets of halo catalogues for cosmological observables.

Effect of screening mechanisms on black hole binary inspiral waveforms

Scalar-tensor theories leaving significant modifications of gravity at cosmological scales rely on screening mechanisms to recover general relativity (GR) in high-density regions and pass stringent tests with astrophysical objects. Much focus has been placed on the signatures of such modifications of gravity on the propagation of gravitational waves (GWs) through cosmological distances while typically assuming their emission from fully screened regions with the wave generation strictly abiding by GR. Here, we closely analyze the impact of screening mechanisms on the inspiral GW waveforms from compact sources by employing a scaling method that enables a post-Newtonian (PN) expansion in screened regimes. Particularly, we derive the leading-order corrections to a fully screened emission to first PN order in the near zone, and we also compute the modifications in the unscreened radiation zone to second PN order. For a concrete example, we apply our results to a cubic Galileon model. The resulting GW amplitude from a binary black hole inspiral deviates from its GR counterpart at most by one part in ${10}^{2}$ for the modifications in the radiation zone and at most one part in ${10}^{11}$ due to next-order corrections to the fully screened near zone. We expect such modifications to be undetectable by the current generation of GW detectors, but the deviation is not so small as to remain undetectable in future experiments.

The linear and nonlinear growth functions in Cubic Galileon

<p indent=0mm>We introduce the Lagrangian perturbation theory under ΛCDM model, and extend it to the Cubic Galileon (G3) model. We present the second order growth function in G3 model based on the Lagrangian perturbation theory. We find that the effective Newtonian constant in G3 model is almost scale independent. Its value is bigger than that of the ΛCDM model. In the late time dark energy dominated epoch, its value is enhanced by a factor about 2. Based on this, the linear and nonlinear growth functions in the structure formation for G3 model are larger than that of the ΛCDM model. It means G3 model has stronger galaxy clustering effect than ΛCDM model. Besides of this, we find the second order growth function can be separated into spatial and temporal dependent parts. Hence, one only needs to convolve different momentum configurations at the initial stage. This will significantly accelerate the numerical calculation.

Proca-stinated cosmology. Part II. Matter, halo, and lensing statistics in the vector Galileon

The generalised Proca (GP) theory is a modified gravity model in which the acceleration of the cosmic expansion rate can be explained by self interactions of a cosmological vector field. In this paper we study a particular sub-class of the GP theory, with up to cubic order Lagrangian, known as the cubic vector Galileon (cvG) model. This model is similar to the cubic scalar Galileon (csG) in many aspects, including a fifth force and the Vainshtein screening mechanism, but with the additional flexibility that the strength of the fifth force depends on an extra parameter — interpolating between zero and the full strength of the csG model — while the background expansion history is independent of this parameter. It offers an interesting alternative to ΛCDM in explaining the cosmic acceleration, as well as a solution to the tension between early- and late-time measurements of the Hubble constant H 0. To identify the best ways to test this model, in this paper we conduct a comprehensive study of the phenomenology of this model in the nonlinear regime of large-scale structure formation, using a suite of N-body simulations run with the modified gravity code ECOSMOG. By inspecting thirteen statistics of the dark matter field, dark matter haloes and weak lensing maps, we find that the fifth force in this model can have particularly significant effects on the large-scale velocity field and lensing potential at late times, which suggest that redshift-space distortions and weak lensing can place strong constraints on it.

Consistency of Cubic Galileon Cosmology: Model-Independent Bounds from Background Expansion and Perturbative Analyses

We revisit the cosmological dynamics of the cubic Galileon model in light of the recently proposed model-independent analyses of the Pantheon supernova data. At the background level, it is shown to be compatible with data and preferred over standard quintessence models. Furthermore, the model is shown to be consistent with the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture (as well as other Swampland conjectures). It is shown that for the given parametrization, the model fails to satisfy the bounds on the reconstructed growth index derived from the Pantheon data set at the level of linear perturbations.

Non-perturbative quantum Galileon in the exact renormalization group

We investigate the non-perturbative renormalization group flow of the scalar Galileon model in flat space. We discuss different expansion schemes of the Galileon truncation, including a heat-kernel based derivative expansion, a vertex expansion in momentum space and a curvature expansion in terms of a covariant geometric formulation. We find that the Galileon symmetry prevents a quantum induced renormalization group running of the Galileon couplings. Consequently, the Galileon truncation only features a trivial Gaussian fixed point.

Proca in the sky

The standard model of cosmology, the ΛCDM model, describes the evolution of the Universe since the Big Bang with just a few parameters, six in its basic form. Despite being the simplest model, direct late-time measurements of the Hubble constant compared with the early-universe measurements result in the so-called H0 tension. It is claimed that a late time resolution is predestined to fail when different cosmological probes are combined. In this work, we shake the ground of this belief with a very simple model. We show how, in the context of cubic vector Galileon models, the Hubble tensioncan naturally be relieved using a combination of CMB, BAO and SNe observations without using any prior on H0. The tension can be reduced even further by including the local measurement of the Hubble constant.

Proca-stinated cosmology. Part I. A N-body code for the vector Galileon

We investigate the nonlinear growth of large-scale structure in the generalised Proca theory, in which a self-interacting massive vector field plays the role of driving the acceleration of the cosmic expansion. Focusing to the Proca Lagrangian at cubic order—the cubic vector Galileon model—we derive the simplified equations for gravity as well as the longitudinal and transverse modes of the vector field under the weak-field and quasi-static approximations, and implement them in a modified version of the ECOSMOG N-body code. Our simulations incorporate the Vainshtein screening effect, which reconciles the fifth force propagated by the longitudinal mode of the cubic vector Galileon model with local tests of gravity. The results confirm that for all scales probed by the simulation, the transverse mode has a negligible impact on structure formation in a realistic cosmological setup. It is well known that in this model the strength of the fifth force is controlled by a free model parameter, which we denote as β̃3. By running a suite of cosmological simulations for different values of β̃3, we show that this parameter also determines the effectiveness of the Vainshtein screening. The model behaves identically to the cubic scalar Galileon for 0β̃3 → , in which the fifth force is strong in unscreened regions but is efficiently screened in high-density regions. In the opposite limit, β̃3 → ∞, the model approaches its 'quintessence' counterpart, which has a vanishing fifth force but a modified expansion history compared to ΛCDM. This endows the model with rich phenomenology, which will be investigated in future works.

Study of cubic Galileon gravity using N -body simulations

We use N-body simulation to study the structure formation in the Cubic Galileon Gravity model where along with the usual kinetic and potential term we also have a higher derivative self-interaction term. We find that the large scale structure provides a unique constraining power for this model. The matter power spectrum, halo mass function, galaxy-galaxy weak lensing signal, marked density power spectrum as well as count in cell are measured. The simulations show that there are less massive halos in the Cubic Galileon Gravity model than corresponding $\Lambda$CDM model and the marked density power spectrum in these two models are different by more than $10\%$. Furthermore, the Cubic Galileon model shows significant differences in voids compared to $\Lambda$CDM. The number of low density cells is far higher in the Cubic Galileon model than that in the $\Lambda$CDM model. Therefore, it would be interesting to put constraints on this model using future large scale structure observations, especially in void regions.

New graviton mass bound from binary pulsars

In Einstein's general relativity, gravity is mediated by a massless metric field. The extension of general relativity to consistently include a mass for the graviton has profound implications for gravitation and cosmology. Salient features of various massive gravity theories can be captured by Galileon models, the simplest of which is the cubic Galileon. The presence of the Galileon field leads to additional gravitational radiation in binary pulsars where the Vainshtein mechanism is less suppressed than its fifth-force counterpart, which deserves a detailed confrontation with observations. We prudently choose fourteen well-timed binary pulsars, and from their intrinsic orbital decay rates we put a new bound on the graviton mass, $m_g \lesssim 2 \times 10^{-28}\,{\rm eV}/c^2$ at the 95% confidence level, assuming a flat prior on $\ln m_g$. It is equivalent to a bound on the graviton Compton wavelength $\lambda_g \gtrsim 7 \times 10^{21}\,{\rm m}$. Furthermore, we extensively simulate times of arrival for pulsars in orbit around stellar-mass black holes and the supermassive black hole at the Galactic center, and investigate their prospects in probing the cubic Galileon theory in the near future.

Galileon scalar electrodynamics

We construct a consistent model of Galileon scalar electrodynamics. The model satisfies three essential requirements: (1) The action contains higher-order derivative terms, and obey the Galilean symmetry, (2) Equations of motion also satisfy Galilean symmetry and contain only up to second-order derivative terms in the matter fields and, hence do not suffer from instability, and (3) local U(1) gauge invariance is preserved. We show that the non-minimal coupling terms in our model are different from that of the real scalar Galileon models; however, they match with the Galileon real scalar field action. We show that the model can lead to an accelerated expansion in the early Universe. We discuss the implications of the model for cosmological inflation.

Phenomenology of the generalized cubic covariant Galileon model and cosmological bounds

We investigate the generalized cubic covariant Galileon model, a kinetically driven dark energy model within the Horndeski class of theories. The model extends the cubic covariant Galileon by including power laws of the field derivatives in the K-essence and cubic terms which still allow for tracker solutions. We study the shape of the viable parameter space by enforcing stability conditions which include the absence of ghost, gradient and tachyon instabilities and the avoidance of strong coupling at early time. We study here the relevant effects of the modifications induced by the model on some cosmological observables such as the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the lensing potential auto-correlation and the matter power spectrum. For this goal, we perform parameter estimation using data of CMB temperature and polarization, baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO), redshift-space distortions (RSD), supernovae type Ia (SNIa) and Cepheids. Data analysis with CMB alone finds that the today's Hubble parameter $H_0$ is consistent with its determination from Cepheids at $1\sigma$, resolving the famous tension of the cosmological standard models. The joint analysis of CMB, BAO, RSD and SNIa sets a lower bound for the sum of neutrino masses which is $\Sigma m_\nu >0.11$ eV at 1$\sigma$, in addition to the usual upper limit. The model selection analysis based on the effective $\chi_\text{eff}^2$ and Deviance Information Criterion is not able to clearly identify the statistically favored model between $\Lambda$CDM and the generalized cubic covariant Galileon, from which we conclude that the latter model deserves further studies.

Geometrized quantum Galileons

We investigate the renormalization structure of the scalar Galileon model in flat spacetime by calculating the one-loop divergences in a closed geometric form. The geometric formulation is based on the definition of an effective Galileon metric and allows to apply known heat-kernel techniques. The result for the one-loop divergences is compactly expressed in terms of curvature invariants of the effective Galileon metric and corresponds to a resummation of the divergent one-loop contributions of all n-point functions. The divergent part of the one-loop effective action therefore serves as generating functional for arbitrary n-point counterterms. We discuss our result within the Galileon effective field theory and give a brief outlook on extensions to more general Galileon models in curved spacetime.