Growth Index Of Matter Perturbations Research Articles

Growth index of matter perturbations in the light of Dark Energy Survey

We study how the cosmological constraints from growth data are improved by including the measurements of bias from Dark Energy Survey (DES). In particular, we utilize the biasing properties of the DES Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) and the growth data provided by the various galaxy surveys in order to constrain the growth index (gamma ) of the linear matter perturbations. Considering a constant growth index we can put tight constraints, up to sim 10% accuracy, on gamma . Specifically, using the priors of the Dark Energy Survey and implementing a joint likelihood procedure between theoretical expectations and data we find that the best fit value is in between gamma =0.64pm 0.075 and 0.65pm 0.063. On the other hand utilizing the Planck priors we obtain gamma =0.680pm 0.089 and 0.690pm 0.071. This shows a small but non-zero deviation from General Relativity (gamma _{mathrm{GR}}approx 6/11), nevertheless the confidence level is in the range sim 1.3-2sigma . Moreover, we find that the estimated mass of the dark-matter halo in which LRGs survive lies in the interval sim 6.2 times 10^{12} h^{-1} M_{odot } and 1.2 times 10^{13} h^{-1} M_{odot }, for the different bias models. Finally, allowing gamma to evolve with redshift [Taylor expansion: gamma (z)=gamma _{0}+gamma _{1}z/(1+z)] we find that the (gamma _{0},gamma _{1}) parameter solution space accommodates the GR prediction at sim 1.7-2.9sigma levels.

Linear growth index of matter perturbations in Rastall gravity

Rastall gravity theory shows notable features consistent with physical observations in comparison to the standard Einstein theory. Recently, there has been a debate about the equivalence of Rastall gravity and general relativity. Motivated by this open issue, in the present work, we attempt to shed some light on this debate by analyzing the evolution of the Rastall based cosmological model at the background as well as perturbation level. Employing the dynamical system techniques, we found that at late times, the dynamics of the model resembles the ΛCDM model at the background level irrespective of the choice of Rastall's parameter. However, at the perturbation level, we found that the evolution of the growth index heavily depends on the Rastall's parameter and displays a significant deviation from the ΛCDM model.

Growth of matter perturbations in clustered holographic dark energy cosmologies

We investigate the growth of matter fluctuations in holographic dark energy cosmologies. First we use an overall statistical analysis involving the latest observational data in order to place constraints on the cosmological parameters. Then we test the range of validity of the holographic dark energy models at the perturbation level and its variants from the concordance $\Lambda$ cosmology. Specifically, we provide a new analytical approach in order to derive, for the first time, the growth index of matter perturbations. Considering a homogeneous holographic dark energy we find that the growth index is $\gamma \approx \frac{4}{7}$ which is somewhat larger ($\sim 4.8\%$) than that of the usual $\Lambda$ cosmology, $\gamma^{(\Lambda)}\approx \frac{6}{11}$. Finally, if we allow clustering in the holographic dark energy models then the asymptotic value of the growth index is given in terms of the effective sound speed $c_{\rm eff}^2$, namely $\gamma \approx \frac{3(1-c_{\rm eff}^2)}{7}$.

Growth index of matter perturbations in running vacuum models

We derive for the first time the growth index of matter perturbations of the FLRW flat cosmological models in which the vacuum energy depends on redshift. A particularly well motivated model of this type is the so-called quantum field vacuum, in which apart from a leading constant term $\Lambda_0$ there is also a $H^{2}$-dependence in the functional form of vacuum, namely $\Lambda(H)=\Lambda_{0}+3\nu (H^{2}-H^{2}_{0})$. Since $|\nu|\ll1$ this form endows the vacuum energy of a mild dynamics which affects the evolution of the main cosmological observables at the background and perturbation levels. Specifically, at the perturbation level we find that the growth index of the running vacuum cosmological model is $\gamma_{\Lambda_{H}} \approx \frac{6+3\nu}{11-12\nu}$ and thus it nicely extends analytically the result of the $\Lambda$CDM model, $\gamma_{\Lambda}\approx 6/11$.

The growth index of matter perturbations using the clustering of dark energy

We have put forward a new unified framework which provides a consistent and rather complete account of the growth index of matter perturbations in the regime where the dark energy is allowed to have clustering. In particular, we find that the growth index is not only affected by the cosmological parameters but rather it depends on the choice of the considered dark energy (homogeneous or clustered). Using the Planck priors and performing a standard χ2-minimization between theoretical expectations and growth data, we statistically quantify the ability of the growth index to represent the observations. Finally, based on the growth index analysis we find that the growth data favour the clustered dark energy scenario.

Cosmological equivalence between the Finsler-Randers space-time and the DGP gravity model

We perform a detailed comparison between the Finsler-Randers cosmological model and the Dvali, Gabadadze and Porrati braneworld model. If we assume that the spatial curvature is strictly equal to zero then we prove the following interesting proposition: {\it despite the fact that the current cosmological models have a completely different geometrical origin they share exactly the same Hubble expansion}. This implies that the Finsler-Randers model is cosmologically equivalent with that of the DGP model as far as the cosmic expansion is concerned. At the perturbative level we find that the Finsler-Randers growth index of matter perturbations is $\gamma_{FR} \simeq 9/14$ which is somewhat lower than that of DGP gravity ($\gamma_{DGP} \simeq 11/16$) implying that the growth factor of the Finsler-Randers model is slightly different ($\sim 0.1-2%$) from the one provided by the DGP gravity model.

The growth index of matter perturbations and modified gravity

We place tight constraints on the growth index $\gamma$ by using the recent growth history results of 2dFGRS, SDSS-LRG, VIMOS-VLT deep Survey (VVDS) and {\em WiggleZ} datasets. In particular, we investigate several parametrizations of the growth index $\gamma(z)$, by comparing their cosmological evolution using observational growth rate data at different redshifts. Utilizing a standard likelihood analysis we find that the use of the combined growth data provided by the 2dFGRS, SDSS-LRG, VVDS and {\em WiggleZ} galaxy surveys, puts the most stringent constraints on the value of the growth index. As an example, assuming a constant growth index we obtain that $\gamma=0.602\pm 0.055$ for the concordance $\Lambda$CDM expansion model. Concerning the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati gravity model, we find $\gamma=0.503\pm 0.06$ which is lower, and almost $3\sigma$ away, from the theoretically predicted value of $\gamma_{DGP}\simeq 11/16$. Finally, based on a time varying growth index we also confirm that the combined growth data disfavor the DGP gravity.

A parametrization of the growth index of matter perturbations in various Dark Energy models and observational prospects using a Euclid-like survey

We provide exact solutions to the cosmological matter perturbation equation in a homogeneous FLRW universe with a vacuum energy that can be parametrized by a constant equation of state parameter w and a very accurate approximation for the Ansatz w(a) = w0+wa(1−a). We compute the growth index γ = log f(a)/log Ωm(a), and its redshift dependence, using the exact and approximate solutions in terms of Legendre polynomials and show that it can be parametrized as γ(a) = γ0+γa(1−a) in most cases. We then compare four different types of dark energy (DE) models: wΛCDM, DGP, f(R) and a LTB-large-void model, which have very different behaviors at z≳1. This allows us to study the possibility to differentiate between different DE alternatives using wide and deep surveys like Euclid, which will measure both photometric and spectroscopic redshifts for several hundreds of millions of galaxies up to redshift z ≃ 2. We do a Fisher matrix analysis for the prospects of differentiating among the different DE models in terms of the growth index, taken as a given function of redshift or with a principal component analysis, with a value for each redshift bin for a Euclid-like survey. We use as observables the complete and marginalized power spectrum of galaxies P(k) and the Weak Lensing (WL) power spectrum. We find that, using P(k), one can reach (2%, 5%) errors in (w0,wa), and (4%, 12%) errors in (γ0,γa), while using WL we get errors at least twice as large. These estimates allow us to differentiate easily between DGP, f(R) models and ΛCDM, while it would be more difficult to distinguish the latter from a variable equation of state parameter or LTB models using only the growth index.