Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1612.08661

Mimetic gravity: a review of recent developments and applications to cosmology and astrophysics

L. Sebastiani·S. Vagnozzi·R. Myrzakulov
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Mimetic gravity is a Weyl-symmetric extension of General Relativity, related to the latter by a singular disformal transformation, wherein the appearance of a dust-like perfect fluid can mimic cold dark matter at a cosmological level. Within this framework, it is possible to provide an unified geometrical explanation for dark matter, the late-time acceleration, and inflation, making it a very attractive theory. In this review, we summarize the main aspects of mimetic gravity, as well as extensions of the minimal formulation of the model. We devote particular focus to the reconstruction technique, which allows the realization of any desired expansionary history of the Universe by an accurate choice of potential, or other functions defined within the theory (as in the case of mimetic $f(R)$ gravity). We briefly discuss cosmological perturbation theory within mimetic gravity. As a case study within which we apply the concepts previously discussed, we study a mimetic Ho\v{r}ava-like theory, of which we explore solutions and cosmological perturbations in detail. Finally, we conclude the review by discussing static spherically symmetric solutions within mimetic gravity, and apply our findings to the problem of galactic rotation curves. Our review provides an introduction to mimetic gravity, as well as a concise but self-contained summary of recent findings, progresses, open questions, and outlooks on future research directions.

Explore related subjects

gr-qc

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

L. Sebastiani, S. Vagnozzi, R. Myrzakulov. 2016-12-27. Mimetic gravity: a review of recent developments and applications to cosmology and astrophysics. https://doi.org/10.1155/2017%2F3156915

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↗