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arXiv · 2607.24940

EFT-Ramses: a code to simulate the effective field theory of dark energy

Nathaniel Ota Woodcock·Sownak Bose·Yunhao Gao·Baojiu Li
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Abstract

While the standard $\Lambda$CDM paradigm is in excellent agreement with most current cosmological observations, theoretical challenges surrounding the cosmological constant ($\Lambda$) have strongly motivated the exploration of dynamical dark energy (DE) and modified gravity (MG) models. Investigating the physical nature of the cosmic acceleration requires N-body simulations to probe the non-linear growth of cosmic structure and prepare for the high-precision data from Stage-IV surveys. In this paper, we present EFT-RAMSES, a comprehensive extension of the ECOSMOG cosmological simulation code designed to explore non-linear structure formation in DE and MG scenarios. We embed the effective field theory of dark energy (EFTofDE) framework into this new numerical pipeline, utilising the $\alpha$-basis parameterisation to provide a versatile, model-agnostic, computational engine. By consolidating diverse scalar and vector-tensor theories---including the normal and self-accelerating Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) models, cubic Galileons (cubic scalar Galileon (csG), cubic vector Galileon (cvG) and generalised cubic covariant Galileon (GCCG)), and generic effective field theory (EFT) parameterisation---into a single "master" Vainshtein equation, this pipeline bypasses the need for model-specific solvers and easily specialises to any particular model. As validations, we perform high-resolution N-body simulations for the normal-branch DGP (nDGP), csG, GCCG, and EFT models, comparing the resulting matter power spectra against dependent and independent codes such as legacy ECOSMOG and HiCOLA, as well as linear theory, and find excellent agreement. EFT-RAMSES provides a robust and versatile computational tool for precision cosmological tests of DE and MG using upcoming cosmological surveys. The code is available for download from the GitHub EFT-RAMSES repository.

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Nathaniel Ota Woodcock, Sownak Bose, Yunhao Gao, Baojiu Li. 2026-07-27. EFT-Ramses: a code to simulate the effective field theory of dark energy. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.24940

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