Late-time Cosmic Acceleration Research Articles

A constrained cosmological model in [formula omitted] gravity

In this article, we study the expanding nature of the universe in the context of f(R,Lm) gravity theory, here R represents the Ricci scalar and Lm is the matter Lagrangian density. With a specific form of f(R,Lm), we obtain the field equations for flat FLRW metric. We parametrize the deceleration parameter in terms of the Hubble parameter and from here we find four free parameters, which are constraints and estimated by using H(z), Pantheon, and their joint data sets. Further, we investigate the evolution of the deceleration parameter which depicts a transition from the deceleration to acceleration phases of the universe. The evolutionary behaviour of energy density, pressure, and EoS parameter shows that the present model is an accelerated quintessence dark energy model. To compare our model with the ΛCDM model we use some of the diagnostic techniques. Thus, we find that our model in f(R,Lm) gravity supports the recent standard observational studies and delineates the late-time cosmic acceleration.

Charged wormholes in Hybrid metric-Palatini gravity

The theory of Hybrid metric-Palatini gravity was proposed by Harko et al. [Metric-Palatini gravity unifying local constraints and late-time cosmic acceleration, Phys. Rev. D 85 (2012) 084016.] in 2012 which could explain both local and cosmological observations. In this paper, this theory has been taken into account to obtain static, spherical, and symmetric charged traversable wormhole solutions. The shape of the wormhole is determined in two different cases with the simplest form of scalar field potential. It is obtained that asymptotically flat wormholes are possible in each case. The energy conditions, namely, null, weak, and strong energy conditions are tested in each case and the results are compared.

Holographic dark energy from the laws of thermodynamics with Rényi entropy

This article investigates the relationship between the holographic principle and the laws of thermodynamics in explaining the late-time acceleration of the universe. First, we explore the possibilities of generating the standard holographic dark energy (SHDE) from the laws of horizon thermodynamics. Except for entropies that follow an exponent stretched area law, unless we redefine the horizon temperature, we found it challenging to construct a one-to-one correspondence between the dark energies defined by the holographic principle and the laws of thermodynamics. Secondly, in SHDE models, unless we invoke some phenomenological interactions, it is impossible to explain the late-time cosmic acceleration with the Hubble horizon as the IR cutoff. On the other hand, it is possible to induce dark energy as an integration constant using the laws of thermodynamics on the Hubble horizon. These motivated us to explore a feasible way to invoke the holographic principle from the laws of horizon thermodynamics. We show that the additional terms that appear in the modified Friedmann equations on using entropies other than the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy in the first law of thermodynamics can behave like a dynamic holographic dark energy (HDE). We study the features of such an HDE with Rényi entropy as the choice without considering any non-standard interactions. Interestingly, the resulting form of dark energy reduces to the standard cosmological constant when Rényi entropy reduces to the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy. By examining different parameters, we affirm the validity of our approach to dark energy, which respects both holographic principle and thermodynamics.

Bulk Viscous Fluid in Symmetric Teleparallel Cosmology: Theory versus Experiment

The standard formulation of General Relativity Theory, in the absence of a cosmological constant, is unable to explain the responsible mechanism for the observed late-time cosmic acceleration. On the other hand, by inserting the cosmological constant in Einstein’s field equations, it is possible to describe the cosmic acceleration, but the cosmological constant suffers from an unprecedented fine-tuning problem. This motivates one to modify Einstein’s spacetime geometry of General Relativity. The f(Q) modified theory of gravity is an alternative theory to General Relativity, where the non-metricity scalar Q is the responsible candidate for gravitational interactions. In the present work, we consider a Friedmann–Lemâitre–Robertson–Walker cosmological model dominated by bulk viscous cosmic fluid in f(Q) gravity with the functional form f(Q)=αQn, where α and n are free parameters of the model. We constrain our model with the Pantheon supernovae dataset of 1048 data points, the Hubble dataset of 31 data points, and the baryon acoustic oscillations dataset consisting of 6 data points. We find that our f(Q) cosmological model efficiently describes the observational data. We present the evolution of our deceleration parameter with redshift, and it properly predicts a transition from decelerated to accelerated phases of the universe’s expansion. Furthermore, we present the evolution of density, bulk viscous pressure, and the effective equation of state parameter with redshift. Those show that bulk viscosity in a cosmic fluid is a valid candidate to acquire the negative pressure to drive the cosmic expansion efficiently. We also examine the behavior of different energy conditions to test the viability of our cosmological f(Q) model. Furthermore, the statefinder diagnostics are also investigated in order to distinguish among different dark energy models.

Imprint of f(R) gravity in the cosmic magnification

ABSTRACT f(R) gravity is one of the simplest viable modifications to General Relativity: it passes local astrophysical tests, predicts both the early-time cosmic inflation and the late-time cosmic acceleration, and describes dark matter. In this paper, we probe cosmic magnification on large scales in f(R) gravity, using the well-known Hu-Sawicki model as an example. Our results indicate that at redshifts $z \, {\lt }\, 3$, values of the model exponent $n \, {\gt }\, 1$ lead to inconsistent behaviour in the evolution of the scalar perturbations. Moreover, when relativistic effects are taken into account in the large-scale analysis, our results show that as z increases, large-scale changes in the cosmic magnification angular power spectrum owing to integral values of n tend to share a similar pattern, while those of decimal values tend to share another. This feature could be searched for in the experimental data, as a potential ‘smoking gun’ for the given class of gravity models. Furthermore, we found that at $z \, {=}\, 1$ and lower, relativistic effects lead to a suppression of the cosmic magnification on large scales in f(R) gravity, relative to the concordance model; whereas, at $z \, {\gt }\, 1$, relativistic effects lead to a relative boost of the cosmic magnification. In general, relativistic effects enhance the potential of the cosmic magnification as a cosmological probe.

Stringy multifield quintessence and the Swampland

We consider quintessence models within 4D effective descriptions of gravity coupled to two scalar fields. These theories are known to give rise to viable models of late-time cosmic acceleration without any need for flat potentials, and so they are potentially in agreement with the dS Swampland conjecture. In this paper we investigate the possibility of consistently embedding such constructions in string theory. We identify situations where the quintessence fields are either closed string universal moduli or non-universal moduli such as blow-up modes. We generically show that no trajectories compatible with today’s cosmological parameters exist, if one starts from matter-dominated initial conditions. It is worth remarking that universal trajectories compatible with observations do appear, provided that the starting point at early times is a phase of kinetic domination. However, justifying this choice of initial conditions on solid grounds is far from easy. We conclude by studying Q-ball formation in this class of models and discuss constraints coming from Q-ball safety in all cases analyzed here.

A phantom dark energy model without a ghost field

In this paper, we investigate geometrically the late-time cosmic acceleration in the presence of pressureless matter and when the universe is devoid of matter. The expansion of the universe undergoes an acceleration due to the modification of Riemann manifold and could even evolve into a phantom regime without considering a ghost field. This phantom stage is explained in terms of generalized fluids with inhomogeneous modifications. Cosmological parameters found in this paper are roughly compatible with latest results based on astrophysical data. We also derive the corresponding [Formula: see text]-gravity.

Probing modified gravity with integrated Sachs-Wolfe CMB and galaxy cross-correlations

We use the cross-correlation power spectrum of the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy and galaxy fluctuations to probe the physics of late-time cosmic acceleration. For this purpose, we focus on three models of dark energy that belong to a sub-class of Horndeski theories with the speed of gravity equivalent to that of light: Galileon Ghost Condensate (GGC), Generalized Cubic Covariant Galileon (GCCG), and K-mouflage. In the GGC and GCCG models, the existence of cubic-order scalar self-interactions allows a possibility for realizing negative ISW-galaxy cross-correlations, while the K-mouflage model predicts a positive correlation similar to the Λ-cold-dark-matter (ΛCDM) model. In our analysis, we fix the parameters of each model to their best-fit values derived from a baseline likelihood analysis with observational data from CMB, baryon acoustic oscillations, and supernovae type Ia. Then we fit those best-fit models to the ISW-galaxy cross-correlation power spectrum extracted from a collection of photometric redshift surveys. We find that both GGC and GCCG best-fit models degrade the fit to the ISW-galaxy cross-correlation data compared to ΛCDM best-fit model. This is attributed to the fact that, for their best-fit values constrained from the baseline likelihood, the cubic-order scalar self-interaction gives rise to suppressed ISW tails relative to ΛCDM. The K-mouflage best-fit model is largely degenerate with the ΛCDM best-fit model and has a positively correlated ISW-galaxy power close to that of ΛCDM.

Note on interacting holographic dark energy with a Hubble-scale cutoff

Holographic dark energy with the Hubble radius as infrared cutoff has been considered as a candidate to explain the late-time cosmic acceleration and it can solve the coincidence problem. In this scenario, a nonzero equation of state is only possible if there is an interaction between dark energy and cold dark matter. In this paper, a set of phenomenological interactions is assumed and a detailed analysis of the possible values of the coupling constants is carried out, however the resulting matter power spectrum and cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization power spectra have a shape very far from the observed ones. These results rule out any value for the free parameters and it seems to indicate that the assumed interacting holographic dark energy with a Hubble-scale cutoff is not viable to explain the accelerated expansion of the Universe, when cosmological data are taken into account.

Testing non-local gravity by clusters of galaxies

Extended theories of gravity have been extensively investigated during the last thirty years, aiming at fixing infrared and ultraviolet shortcomings of General Relativity and of the associated varLambda CDM cosmological model. Recently, non-local theories of gravity have drawn increasing attention due to their potential to ameliorate both the ultraviolet and infrared behavior of gravitational interaction. In particular, Integral Kernel theories of Gravity provide a viable mechanism to explain the late time cosmic acceleration so as to avoid the introduction of any form of unknown dark energy. On the other hand, these models represent a natural link towards quantum gravity. Here, we study a scalar-tensor equivalent model of General Relativity corrected with non-local terms, where corrections are selected by the existence of Noether symmetries. After performing the weak field limit and generalizing the results to extended mass distributions, we analyse the non-local model at galaxy cluster scales, by comparing the theoretical predictions with gravitational lensing observations from the CLASH program. We obtain agreement with data at the same level of statistical significance as General Relativity. We also provide constraints for the Navarro–Frenk–White parameters and lower bounds for the non-local length scales. The results are finally compared with those from the literature.

Observational constraints on the massive neutrinos induced late-time cosmic acceleration

We investigate a late-time cosmological scenario at the both cosmological background and linear perturbative level which is based on a mass-less λ ϕ 4 theory in which the scalar field is inextricably coupled to massive neutrino matter with Z 2 symmetry by a well defined conformal coupling. The chosen coupling generically leads to the spontaneous symmetry breaking at late times, as the coupling builds up dynamically, such that the field acquires a non-zero mass proportional to the neutrino mass and rolls down slowly around the true ground state which emerges after spontaneous symmetry breaking. From our parametric estimations, we find the given scenario is well supported by the background level cosmological observations and is also in a good agreement with the evolution of growth of matter perturbations.

Constant-roll, cosmic acceleration, and massive neutrinos

We propose a model to describe the late-time cosmic acceleration in the context of the constant-roll model. By considering a coupling between massive neutrinos and the quintessence, the onset of evolution of the quintessence is related to the neutrinos' behavior. When the neutrinos become non-relativistic, the dark energy density increases from zero and results in late-time cosmic acceleration alleviating the coincidence problem. The quintessence potential is such that it evolves under the constant-roll condition giving rise to persistent late-time acceleration.

Accelerating expansion of the universe in modified symmetric teleparallel gravity

The fundamental nature and origin of dark energy are one of the premier mysteries of theoretical physics. In General Relativity Theory, the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is the simplest explanation for dark energy. On the other hand, the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ suffers from a delicate issue so-called fine-tuning problem. This motivates one to modify the spacetime geometry of Einstein's GR. The $f(Q)$ gravity is a recently proposed modified theory of gravity in which the non-metricity scalar $Q$ drives the gravitational interaction. In this article, we consider a linear $f(Q)$ model, specifically $f(Q)=\alpha Q + \beta$, where $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are free parameters. Then we estimate the best fit values of model parameters that would be in agreement with the recent observational data sets. We use 57 points of the updated $H(z)$ data sets, 6 points of the BAO data sets, and 1048 points from the Pantheon supernovae samples. We apply the Bayesian analysis and likelihood function along with the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. Further, we analyse the physical behaviour of cosmological parameters such as density, deceleration, and the EoS parameters corresponding to the constraint values of the model parameters. The evolution of deceleration parameter predicts a transition from decelerated to accelerated phases of the universe. Further, the evolution of equation of state parameter depicts quintessence type behaviour of the dark energy fluid part. We found that our $f(Q)$ cosmological model can effectively describe the late time cosmic acceleration without invoking any dark energy component in the matter part.

Screening mechanism and late-time cosmology: Role of a Chameleon–Brans–Dicke scalar field

ABSTRACT We discuss a way in which the geometric scalar field in a Brans–Dicke (BD) theory can evade local astronomical tests and act as a driver of the late-time cosmic acceleration. This requires a self-interaction of the BD scalar as well as an interaction with ordinary matter. The scalar field in this construct acquires a density-dependent effective mass much like a Chameleon field. We discuss the viability of this setup in the context of Equivalence Principle, Fifth Force, and Solar System tests. The cosmological consistency is adjudged in comparison with observational data from recalibrated light curves of type Ia supernova (JLA), the Hubble parameter measurements (OHD) and the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO). We deduct that the astrophysical constraints indeed favour the existence of a mild scalar-matter interaction in the Jordan Frame.

Cosmology in f(R,Lm) gravity

In this letter, we investigate the cosmic expansion scenario of the universe in the framework of f(R,Lm) gravity theory. We consider a non-linear f(R,Lm) model, specifically, f(R,Lm)=R2+Lmn+β, where n and β are free model parameters. Then we derive the motion equations for flat FLRW universe and obtain the exact solution of corresponding field equations. Then we estimate the best fit ranges of model parameters by using updated H(z) datasets consisting of 57 points and the Pantheon datasets consisting of 1048 points. Further we investigate the physical behavior of density and the deceleration parameter. The evolution of deceleration parameter depicts a transition from deceleration to acceleration phases of the universe. Moreover, we analyze the stability of the solution of our cosmological model under the observational constraint by considering a linear perturbation. Lastly, we investigate the behavior of Om diagnostic parameter and we observe that our model shows quintessence type behavior. We conclude that our f(R,Lm) cosmological model agrees with the recent observational studies and can efficiently describe the late time cosmic acceleration.

A note on inflation in dRGT massive gravity

Although the dRGT massive gravity successfully explains the late-time cosmic acceleration, it cannot justify inflation. On the other hand, and in the frameworks of General Relativity and modified gravity, the interests and attempts to describe dark energy and inflation by using Lagranginas, which may have pole, have recently been enhanced. Subsequently, we are going to show that this kind of Lagrangian may justify inflation in the framework of dRGT massive gravity. The study is done focusing on the power and exponential potentials, and the results show a plausible consistency with the Planck 2018 data and its combination with BK18 and BAO.

Bulk Viscous Bianchi Type-V Cosmological Model in f(R, T) Theory of Gravity

This paper deals with the bulk viscous Bianchi type-V cosmological model with an exponential scale factor in Lyra geometry based on f(R, T) gravity, by considering a time dependent displacement field. To determine the nature and physical properties of the model, we considered Harko et al. (Harko et al., Phys. Rev. D, 2011, 84, 024020) [proposed the linear form f(R, T) = f1(R) + f2(T)], in which the barotropic equation of state for pressure, density, and bulk viscous pressure is proportional to energy density. The kinematical properties of the model are also discussed in the presence of bulk viscosity. Evolution of energy conditions is also studied and examined the behaviour of that in examined in order to explain the late-time cosmic acceleration.

Generalized model of interacting dark energy and dark matter: Phase portrait analysis for evolving universe

The main aim of this work is to give a suitable explanation of present accelerating universe through an acceptable interactive dynamical cosmological model. A three-fluid cosmological model is introduced in the background of Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson-Walker asymptotically flat spacetime. This model consists of interactive dark matter and dark energy with baryonic matter, taken as perfect fluid, satisfying barotropic equation of state. We consider dust as the candidate of dark matter. A scalar field [Formula: see text] represents dark energy with potential [Formula: see text]. Einstein’s field equations are utilized to construct a three-dimensional interactive autonomous system by choosing suitable interaction between dark energy and dark matter. We take the interaction kernel as [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] indicates the density of dark energy, [Formula: see text] is the interacting constant and [Formula: see text] is Hubble parameter. In order to explain the stability of this system, we obtain some suitable critical points. We analyze stability of obtained critical points to show the different phases of universe and cosmological implications. Surprisingly, we find some stable critical points which represent late-time dark energy-dominated era when a model parameter [Formula: see text] is equal to [Formula: see text]. We introduce a two-dimensional interactive autonomous system and after phase portrait analysis of it, we get several stable points which represent dark energy-dominated era and late-time cosmic acceleration simultaneously. Here, we also demonstrate the variation in interaction at vicinity of phantom barrier [Formula: see text]. From our work, we can also predict the future phase evolution of the universe.

Inflation with F(T) teleparallel gravity

We study early universe with a particular form of F(T) Telleparallel gravity theory, in which inflation is driven by a scalar field. To ensure slow rollover, two different potentials are chosen in a manner, such that they remain almost flat for large initial value of the scalar field. Inflationary parameters show wonderful fit with the presently available Planck's data set. The energy scale of inflation is sub-Planckian and graceful exit from inflation is also administered. The chosen form of F(T) administers late-time cosmic acceleration too. In the process, unification of the early inflation with late-time acceleration is ensured. Unfortunately, a decelerated radiation dominated era is only possible with a different form of (quartic) potential, which being devoid of a flat section does not admit slow rollover.

Cosmological Models with Big Rip and Pseudo Rip Scenarios in Extended Theory of Gravity

AbstractIn this paper, we have presented the big rip and pseudo rip cosmological models in an extended theory of gravity. The matter field is considered to be that of perfect fluid. The geometrical parameters are adjusted in such a manner that it matches the prescriptions given by cosmological observations, to be specific to the H0 range. The models favour phantom behaviour. The violation of strong energy conditions are shown in both the models, as it has become essential in an extended gravity theory to provide late time cosmic acceleration. We show that, the choice of the coupling parameter has significant effects on the evolution of the universe.