arXiv subjects

Anne-Christine Davis

Publications and source records attributed to Anne-Christine Davis.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Neutron star merger GW170817 strongly constrains doubly coupled bigravity

We study the implications of the recent detection of gravitational waves emitted by a pair of merging neutron stars and their electromagnetic counterpart, events GW170817 and GRB170817A, on the viability of the doubly coupled bimetric models of cosmic evolution, where the two metrics couple directly to matter through a composite, effective metric. We demonstrate that the bounds on the speed of gravitational waves place strong constraints on the doubly coupled models, forcing either the two metrics to be proportional at the background level or the models to become singly coupled. Proportional backgrounds are particularly interesting as they provide stable cosmological solutions with phenomenologies equivalent to that of $Λ$CDM at the background level as well as for linear perturbations, while nonlinearities are expected to show deviations from the standard model.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Constraining screened fifth forces with the electron magnetic moment

Chameleon and symmetron theories serve as archetypal models for how light scalar fields can couple to matter with gravitational strength or greater, yet evade the stringent constraints from classical tests of gravity on Earth and in the Solar System. In this work, we investigate how a precision measurement of the electron magnetic moment places meaningful constraints on both chameleons and symmetrons. Two effects are identified: First, virtual chameleons and symmetrons run in loops to generate quantum corrections to the intrinsic value of the magnetic moment; a common process widely considered in the literature for many scenarios beyond the Standard Model. A second effect, however, is unique to scalar fields that exhibit screening. A scalar bubblelike profile forms inside the experimental vacuum chamber and exerts a fifth force on the electron, leading to a systematic shift in the experimental measurement. In quantifying this latter effect, we present a novel approach that combines analytic arguments and a small number of numerical simulations to solve for the bubblelike profile quickly for a large range of model parameters. Taken together, both effects yield interesting constraints in complementary regions of parameter space. While the constraints we obtain for the chameleon are largely uncompetitive with those in the existing literature, this still represents the tightest constraint achievable yet from an experiment not originally designed to search for fifth forces. We break more ground with the symmetron, for which our results exclude a large and previously unexplored region of parameter space. Central to this achievement are the quantum correction terms, which are able to constrain symmetrons with masses in the range $μ\in [10^{-3.88},10^8]\,\text{eV}$, whereas other experiments have hitherto only been sensitive to 1 or 2 orders of magnitude at a time.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Signatures of graviton masses on the CMB

The impact of the existence of gravitons with non-vanishing masses on the B modes of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is investigated. We also focus on putative modifications to the speed of the gravitational waves. We find that a change of the graviton speed shifts the acoustic peaks of the CMB and then could be easily constrained. For the case of massive gravity, we show analytically how the B modes are sourced in a manner differing from the massless case leading to a plateau at low $l$ in the CMB spectrum. We also study the case when there are more than one graviton, and when pressure instabilities are present. The latter would occur in doubly coupled bigravity in the radiation era. We focus on the case where a massless graviton becomes tachyonic in the radiation era whilst a massive one remains stable. As the unstable mode decouples from matter in the radiation era, we find that the effects of the instability is largely reduced on the spectrum of B-modes as long as the unstable graviton does not grow into the non-linear regime. In all cases when both massless and massive gravitons are present, we find that the B-mode CMB spectrum is characterised by a low $l$ plateau together with a shifted position for the first few peaks compared to a purely massive graviton spectrum, a shift which depends on the mixing between the gravitons in their coupling to matter and could serve as a hint in favour of the existence of multiple gravitons.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

One-electron atoms in screened modified gravity

In a large class of scalar-tensor theories that are potential candidates for dark energy, a nonminimal coupling between the scalar and the photon is possible. The presence of such an interaction grants us the exciting prospect of directly observing dark sector phenomenology in the electromagnetic spectrum. This paper investigates the behavior of one-electron atoms in this class of modified gravity models, exploring their viability as probes of deviations from general relativity in both laboratory and astrophysical settings. Building heavily on earlier studies, our main contribution is threefold: A thorough analysis finds additional fine-structure corrections previously unaccounted for, which now predict a contribution to the Lamb shift that is larger by nearly 4 orders of magnitude. In addition, they also predict a scalar-mediated photon-photon interaction, which now constrains the scalar's coupling to the photon independently of the matter coupling. This was not previously possible with atomic precision tests. Our updated constraints are $\log_{10}β_m \lesssim 13.4$ and $\log_{10}β_γ\lesssim 19.0$ for the matter and photon coupling, respectively, although these remain uncompetitive with bounds from other experiments. Second, we include the effects of the nuclear magnetic moment, allowing for the study of hyperfine structure and the 21 cm line, which hitherto have been unexplored in this context. Finally, we also examine how a background scalar leads to equivalence principle violations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Gravitational Waves in Doubly Coupled Bigravity

We consider gravitational waves from the point of view of both their production and their propagation in doubly coupled bigravity in the metric formalism. In bigravity, the two gravitons are coupled by a non-diagonal mass matrix and show birefrigence. In particular, we find that one of the two gravitons propagates with a speed which differs from one. This deviation is tightly constrained by both the gravitational Cerenkov effect and the energy loss of binary pulsars. When emitted from astrophysical sources, the Jordan frame gravitational wave, which is a linear combination of the two propagating gravitons, has a wave form displaying beats. The best prospect of detecting this phenomenon would come from nano-Hertz interferometric experiments.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2017

Neutron Stars in Screened Modified Gravity: Chameleon vs Dilaton

We consider the scalar field profile around relativistic compact objects such as neutron stars for a range of modified gravity models with screening mechanisms of the chameleon and Damour-Polyakov types. We focus primarily on inverse power law chameleons and the environmentally dependent dilaton as examples of both mechanisms. We discuss the modified Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equation and then implement a relaxation algorithm to solve for the scalar profiles numerically. We find that chameleons and dilatons behave in a similar manner and that there is a large degeneracy between the modified gravity parameters and the neutron star equation of state. This is exemplified by the modifications to the mass-radius relationship for a variety of model parameters.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Dark Energy and Doubly Coupled Bigravity

We analyse the late time cosmology and the gravitational properties of doubly coupled bigravity in the constrained vielbein formalism (equivalent to the metric formalism) when the mass of the massive graviton is of the order of the present Hubble rate. We focus on one of the two branches of background cosmology where the ratio between the scale factors of the two metrics is algebraically determined. The Universe evolves from a matter dominated epoch to a dark energy dominated era where the equation of state of dark energy can always be made close to -1 now by appropriately tuning the graviton mass. We also analyse the perturbative spectrum of the theory in the quasi static approximation well below the strong coupling scale where no instability is present and we show that there are five scalar degrees of freedom, two vectors and two gravitons. In a cosmological FRW background for both metrics, four of the five scalars are Newtonian potentials which lead to a modification of gravity on large scales. In this scalar sector, gravity is modified with effects on both the growth of structure and the lensing potential. In particular, we find that the $Σ$ parameter governing the Poisson equation of the weak lensing potential can differ from one in the recent past of the Universe. Overall, the nature of the modification of gravity at low energy, which reveals itself in the growth of structure and the lensing potential, is intrinsically dependent on the couplings to matter and the potential term of the vielbeins. We also find that the time variation of Newton's constant in the Jordan frame can easily satisfy the bound from solar system tests of gravity. Finally we show that the two gravitons present in the spectrum have a non-trivial mass matrix whose origin follows from the potential term of bigravity. This mixing leads to gravitational birefringence.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Atomic Interferometry Test of Dark Energy

Atomic interferometry can be used to probe dark energy models coupled to matter. We consider the constraints coming from recent experimental results on models generalising the inverse power law chameleons such as $f(R)$ gravity in the large curvature regime, the environmentally dependent dilaton and symmetrons. Using the tomographic description of these models, we find that only symmetrons with masses smaller than the dark energy scale can be efficiently tested. In this regime, the resulting constraints complement the bounds from the Eötwash experiment and exclude small values of the symmetron self-coupling.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

Black hole accretion discs and screened scalar hair

We present a novel way to investigate scalar field profiles around black holes with an accretion disc for a range of models where the Compton wavelength of the scalar is large compared to other length scales. By analysing the problem in "Weyl" coordinates, we are able to calculate the scalar profiles for accretion discs in the static Schwarzschild, as well as rotating Kerr, black holes. We comment on observational effects.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Disformal transformations on the CMB

In this work we study the role of disformal transformation on cosmological backgrounds and its relation to the speed of sound for tensor modes. A speed different from one for tensor modes can arise in several contexts, such as Galileons theories or massive gravity, nevertheless the speed is very constrained to be one by observations of gravitational wave emission. It has been shown that in inflation a disformal trans- formation allows to set the speed for tensor modes to one without making changes to the curvature power spectrum. Here we show that this invariance does not hold when considering the CMB anisotropy power spectrum. It turns out that the after doing the transformation there is an imprint on the acoustic peaks and the diffusion damping. This has interesting consequences; here we explore quartic galileon theories which allow a modified speed for tensor modes. For these theories the transformation can be used to constraint the parameter space in different regimes.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Searching for scalar gravitational interactions in current and future cosmological data

Modified gravity theories often contain a scalar field of gravitational strength which interacts with matter. We examine constraints on the range and the coupling strength of a scalar gravitational degree of freedom using a subset of current data that can be safely analyzed within the linear perturbation theory. Using a model-independent implementation of scalar-tensor theories in MGCAMB in terms of two functions of the scale factor describing the mass and the coupling of the scalar degree of freedom, we derive constraints on the $f(R)$, generalized chameleon, Symmetron and Dilaton models. Since most of the large scale structure data available today is from relatively low redshifts, only a limited range of observed scales is in the linear regime, leading to relatively weak constraints. We then perform a forecast for a future large scale structure survey, such as Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which will map a significant volume at higher redshifts, and show that it will produce much stronger constraints on scalar interactions in specific models. We also perform a principal component analysis and find that future surveys should be able to provide tight constraints on several eigenmodes of the scalar mass evolution.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Non-canonical inflation coupled to matter

We compute corrections to the inflationary potential due to conformally coupled non-relativistic matter. We find that under certain conditions of the matter coupling, inflation may be interrupted abruptly. We display this in the superconformal Starobinsky model, where matter is conformally coupled to the Einstein frame metric. These corrections may easily stop inflation provided that there is an initial density of non-relativistic matter. Since these additional heavy degrees of freedom generically occur in higher dimension theories, for example as Kaluza-Klein modes, this effect can arise in multiple scenarios.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

The Speed of Galileon Gravity

We analyse the speed of gravitational waves in coupled Galileon models with an equation of state $ω_ϕ=-1$ now and a ghost-free Minkowski limit. We find that the gravitational waves propagate much faster than the speed of light unless these models are small perturbations of cubic Galileons and the Galileon energy density is sub-dominant to a dominant cosmological constant. In this case, the binary pulsar bounds on the speed of gravitational waves can be satisfied and the equation of state can be close to -1 when the coupling to matter and the coefficient of the cubic term of the Galileon Lagrangian are related. This severely restricts the allowed cosmological behaviour of Galileon models and we are forced to conclude that Galileons with a stable Minkowski limit cannot account for the observed acceleration of the expansion of the universe on their own. Moreover any sub-dominant Galileon component of our universe must be dominated by the cubic term. For such models with gravitons propagating faster than the speed of light, the gravitons become potentially unstable and could decay into photon pairs. They could also emit photons by Cerenkov radiation. We show that the decay rate of such speedy gravitons into photons and the Cerenkov radiation are in fact negligible. Moreover the time delay between the gravitational signal and light emitted by explosive astrophysical events could serve as a confirmation that a modification of gravity acts on the largest scales of the Universe.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

The Shape Dependence of Vainshtein Screening

Scalar field theories that possess a Vainshtein mechanism are able to dynamically suppress the associated fifth forces in the presence of massive sources through derivative non-linearities. The resulting equations of motion for the scalar are highly non-linear and therefore very few analytic solutions are known. Here we present a brief investigation of the structure of Vainshtein screening in symmetrical configurations, focusing in particular on the spherical, cylindrical and planar solutions that are relevant for observations of the cosmic web. We consider Vainshtein screening in both the Galileon model, where the non-linear terms involve second derivatives of the scalar, and a k-essence theory, where the non-linear terms involve only first derivatives of the scalar. We find that screening, and consequently the suppression of the scalar force, is most efficient around spherical sources, weaker around cylindrical sources and can be absent altogether around planar sources.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Distinguishing modified gravity models

Modified gravity models with screening in local environments appear in three different guises: chameleon, K-mouflage and Vainshtein mechanisms. We propose to look for differences between these classes of models by considering cosmological observations at low redshift. In particular, we analyse the redshift dependence of the fine structure constant and the proton to electron mass ratio in each of these scenarios. When the absorption lines belong to unscreened regions of space such as dwarf galaxies, a time variation would be present for chameleons. For both K-mouflage and Vainshtein mechanisms, the cosmological time variation of the scalar field is not suppressed in both unscreened and screened environments, therefore enhancing the variation of constants and their detection prospect. We also consider the time variation of the redshift of distant objects using their spectrocopic velocities. We find that models of the K-mouflage and Vainshtein types have very different spectroscopic velocities as a function of redshift and that their differences with the $Λ$-CDM template should be within reach of the future ELT- HIRES observations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Casimir, Gravitational and Neutron Tests of Dark Energy

We investigate laboratory tests of dark energy theories which modify gravity in a way generalising the inverse power law chameleon models. We make use of the tomographic description of such theories which captures $f(R)$ models in the large curvature limit, the dilaton and the symmetron. We consider their effects in various experiments where the presence of a new scalar interaction may be uncovered. More precisely, we focus on the Casimir, Eot-wash and neutron experiments. We show that dilatons, symmetrons and generalised chameleon models are efficiently testable in the laboratory. For generalised chameleons, we revise their status in the light of forthcoming Casimir experiments like CANNEX in Amsterdam and show that they are within reach of detection.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Cosmological Tests of Coupled Galileons

We investigate the cosmological properties of Galileon models with positive kinetic terms. We include both conformal and disformal couplings to matter and focus on constraints on the theory that arise because of these couplings. The disformal coupling to baryonic matter is extremely constrained by astrophysical and particle physics effects. The disformal coupling to photons induces a cosmological variation of the speed of light and therefore distortions of the Cosmic Microwave Background spectrum which are known to be very small. The conformal coupling to baryons leads to a variation of particle masses since Big Bang Nucleosynthesis which is also tightly constrained. We consider the background cosmology of Galileon models coupled to Cold Dark Matter (CDM), photons and baryons and impose that the speed of light and particle masses respect the observational bounds on cosmological time scales. We find that requiring that the equation of state for the Galileon models must be close to -1 now restricts severely their parameter space and can only be achieved with a combination of the conformal and disformal couplings. This leads to large variations of particle masses and the speed of light which are not compatible with observations. As a result, we find that cosmological Galileon models are viable dark energy theories coupled to dark matter but their couplings, both disformal and conformal, to baryons and photons must be heavily suppressed making them only sensitive to CDM.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Astrophysical black holes in screened modified gravity

Chameleon, environmentally dependent dilaton, and symmetron gravity are three models of modified gravity in which the effects of the additional scalar degree of freedom are screened in dense environments. They have been extensively studied in laboratory, cosmological, and astrophysical contexts. In this paper, we present a preliminary investigation into whether additional constraints can be provided by studying these scalar fields around black holes. By looking at the properties of a static, spherically symmetric black hole, we find that the presence of a non-uniform matter distribution induces a non-constant scalar profile in chameleon and dilaton, but not necessarily symmetron gravity. An order of magnitude estimate shows that the effects of these profiles on in-falling test particles will be sub-leading compared to gravitational waves and hence observationally challenging to detect.

astro-ph.CO↗