Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1601.04064

An Extended action for the effective field theory of dark energy: a stability analysis and a complete guide to the mapping at the basis of EFTCAMB

Noemi Frusciante·Georgios Papadomanolakis·Alessandra Silvestri
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

We present a generalization of the effective field theory (EFT) formalism for dark energy and modified gravity models to include operators with higher order spatial derivatives. This allows the extension of the EFT framework to a wider class of gravity theories such as Horava gravity. We present the corresponding extended action, both in the EFT and the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner (ADM) formalism, and proceed to work out a convenient mapping between the two, providing a self contained and general procedure to translate a given model of gravity into the EFT language at the basis of the Einstein-Boltzmann solver EFTCAMB. Putting this mapping at work, we illustrate, for several interesting models of dark energy and modified gravity, how to express them in the ADM notation and then map them into the EFT formalism. We also provide for the first time, the full mapping of GLPV models into the EFT framework. We next perform a thorough analysis of the physical stability of the generalized EFT action, in absence of matter components. We work out viability conditions that correspond to the absence of ghosts and modes that propagate with a negative speed of sound in the scalar and tensor sector, as well as the absence of tachyonic modes in the scalar sector. Finally, we extend and generalize the phenomenological basis in terms of $α$-functions introduced to parametrize Horndeski models, to cover all theories with higher order spatial derivatives included in our extended action. We elaborate on the impact of the additional functions on physical quantities, such as the kinetic term and the speeds of propagation for scalar and tensor modes.

Explore related subjects

gr-qcastro-ph.CO

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Noemi Frusciante, Georgios Papadomanolakis, Alessandra Silvestri. 2016-08-03. An Extended action for the effective field theory of dark energy: a stability analysis and a complete guide to the mapping at the basis of EFTCAMB. https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516%2F2016%2F07%2F018

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Electrovacuum Black Hole Uniqueness

We prove the black hole uniqueness conjecture in the axially symmetric, stationary, electrovacuum setting, subject to the refined asymptotic analysis of the associated singular harmonic maps, which includes an analyticity hypothesis at the axes. More precisely, it is shown that any asymptotically flat solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations in this class, with more than one black hole horizon component is either: Majumdar--Papapetrou, up to a duality rotation, in which case all logarithmic angle defects vanish, or every finite axis rod logarithmic angle defect is strictly negative and hence every interaction force is strictly attractive. The proof extends the singular harmonic map method used for vacuum Kerr uniqueness in [18].

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Constraining Modified Mass-to-Horizon Cosmology Through Primordial Inflationary Observables

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a modified cosmological framework inspired by a generalized mass-to-horizon relation (MHR), $M=\gamma {c^2 L^n}/{G}$, where $n$ is a real parameter and $\gamma$ a dimensional constant. Using Padmanabhan's emergence paradigm, we derive the modified Friedmann equations for a flat FRW universe and analyze the dynamics of a canonical scalar field (inflaton) under the slow-roll approximation. We study the resulting inflationary phenomenology for power-law and Starobinsky potentials. For power-law potentials, the MHR modification fails to reconcile these models with current CMB constraints on $r$ and $n_s$. In contrast, Starobinsky inflation exhibits significant sensitivity to deviations from $n=1$. A perturbative analysis ($n=1+\Delta$) yields corrections to inflationary observables. We observe that the scalar power-spectrum normalization, under a fixed-Starobinsky prescription, imposes the stringent constraint $0.960 \lesssim n \lesssim 1.040$ for $N=60$ efolds. This is considerably tighter than spectral-index bounds. Our results establish inflation, particularly Starobinsky-like models, as a sensitive probe of generalized horizon thermodynamics and departures from standard MHR scaling.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Improving the Sensitivity of Gravitational Wave Detection with Weighted Conformal Prediction

In the last decade, kilometre-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors have observed hundreds of compact binary mergers, the majority of which are binary black holes. However, the data are noise-dominated, and multiple independent search algorithms (pipelines) are used to enhance sensitivity and improve robustness. Rather than the standard approach of selecting the most significant pipeline output, we combine the outputs from all pipelines using a conformal prediction-based framework to provide statistically rigorous confidence estimates for candidate events. While combining pipelines improves sensitivity and ranking robustness, it requires a principled statistical framework that remains valid as data properties evolve across observing runs. A key challenge is distribution shifts between simulated datasets used for training and calibration and the real, unlabelled, observations used for testing, which can invalidate coverage guarantees and bias confidence estimates. In this work, we address this challenge by incorporating likelihood-ratio reweighting into our conformal prediction framework to account for covariate shift. Using mock datasets containing simulated signals, we demonstrate that weighted conformal prediction restores well-calibrated coverage under covariate shift and increases the confidence of events near the detection threshold, recovering true signals that would otherwise be missed.

gr-qc↗