The Lyman-alpha forest in f(R) modified gravity

Abstract

In this work, we analyze the Lyman-$α$ forest in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of chameleon-type f(R) gravity with the goal to assess whether the impact of such models is detectable in absorption line statistics. We carry out a set of hydrodynamical simulations with the cosmological simulation code MG-GADGET, including star formation and cooling effects, and create synthetic Lyman-$α$ absorption spectra from the simulation outputs. We statistically compare simulations with f(R) and ordinary general relativity, focusing on flux probability distribution functions (PDFs) and flux power-spectra, an analysis of the column density and line width distributions, as well as the matter power spectrum. We find that the influence of f(R) gravity on the Lyman-$α$ forest is rather small. Even models with strong modifications of gravity, like $|\bar{f}_{R0}| = 10^{-4}$, do not change the statistical Lyman-$α$ properties by more than 10%. The column density and line width distributions are hardly affected at all. It is therefore not possible to get competitive constraints on the background field $f_R$ using current observational data. An improved understanding of systematics in the observations and a more accurate modeling of the baryonic/radiative physics would be required to allow this in the future. The impact of f(R) on the matter power spectrum in our results is consistent with previous works.