SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 2303.16409

Exact solutions and cosmological constraints in fractional cosmology

Abstract

This paper investigates exact solutions of cosmological interest in fractional cosmology. Given $\mu$, the order of Caputo's fractional derivative, and $w$, the matter equation of state, we present specific exact power-law solutions. We discuss the exact general solution of the Riccati Equation, where the solution for the scale factor is a combination of power laws. Using cosmological data, we estimate the free parameters. An analysis of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) data and the observational Hubble parameter data (OHD), also known as cosmic chronometers, and a joint analysis with data from SNe Ia + OHD leads to best-fit values for the free parameters calculated at $1\sigma$, $2\sigma$ and $3\sigma$ confidence levels (CLs). On the other hand, these best-fit values are used to calculate the age of the Universe, the current deceleration parameter (both at $3\sigma$ CL) and the current matter density parameter at $1\sigma$ CL. Finding a Universe roughly twice as old as the one of $\Lambda$CDM is a distinction of fractional cosmology. Focusing our analysis on these results, we can conclude that the region in which $\mu>2$ is not ruled out by observations. This parameter region is relevant because fractional cosmology gives a power-law solution without matter, which is accelerated for $\mu>2$. We present a fractional origin model that leads to an accelerated state without appealing to $\Lambda$ or dark energy.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Esteban González, Genly Leon, Guillermo Fernandez-Anaya. 2023-03-29. Exact solutions and cosmological constraints in fractional cosmology. https://doi.org/10.3390/fractalfract7050368

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

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

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

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

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