Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2408.03998

A model independent approach to the study of structure growth in $f(R)$ gravity

Kelly MacDevette·Jess Worsley·Peter Dunsby·Saikat Chakraborty
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Over the last decade, much attention has been given to the study of modified gravity theories to find a more natural explanation for the late-time acceleration of the Universe. Particular attention has focused on the so-called $f(R)$ dark energy models. Instead of focusing on a particular f(R) model, we present a completely model-independent approach to study the background dynamics and the growth of matter density perturbations for those f(R) models that mimic the $\Lambda$CDM evolution at the background level. We do this by characterising the dynamics of the gravitational field using a set of dimensionless variables and using cosmography to determine the expansion history. We then illustrate the integrity of this method by fixing the cosmography to be the same as an exact $\Lambda$CDM model, allowing us to test the solution. We compare the exact evolution of the density contrast and growth index with what one obtains from various levels of the quasi-static approximation, without choosing the form of $f(R)$ dark energy.

Explore related subjects

gr-qcastro-ph.CO

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Kelly MacDevette, Jess Worsley, Peter Dunsby, Saikat Chakraborty. 2024-08-07. A model independent approach to the study of structure growth in $f(R)$ gravity. https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.03998

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↗