Stealth Acceleration and Modified Gravity

We show how to construct consistent braneworld models which exhibit late time acceleration. Unlike self-acceleration, which has a de Sitter vacuum state, our models have the standard Minkowski vacuum and accelerate only in the presence of matter, which we dub ``stealth-acceleration''. We use an effective action for the brane which includes an induced gravity term, and allow for an asymmetric set-up. We study the linear stability of flat brane vacua and find the regions of parameter space where the set-up is stable. The 4-dimensional graviton is only quasi-localised in this set-up and as a result gravity is modified at late times. One of the two regions is strongly coupled and the scalar mode is eaten up by an extra symmetry that arises in this limit. Having filtered the well-defined theories we then focus on their cosmology. When the graviton is quasi-localised we find two main examples of acceleration. In each case, we provide an illustrative model and compare it to LambdaCDM.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figure

Second-order matter density perturbations and skewness in scalar-tensor modified gravity models

We study second-order cosmological perturbations in scalar-tensor models of dark energy that satisfy local gravity constraints, including f(R) gravity. We derive equations for matter fluctuations under a sub-horizon approximation and clarify conditions under which first-order perturbations in the scalar field can be neglected relative to second-order matter and velocity perturbations. We also compute the skewness of the matter density distribution and find that the difference from the LCDM model is only less than a few percent even if the growth rate of first-order perturbations is significantly different from that in the LCDM model. This shows that the skewness provides a model-independent test for the picture of gravitational instability from Gaussian initial perturbations including scalar-tensor modified gravity models.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, version to appear in JCA

Low energy effective theory on a regularized brane in 6D gauged chiral supergravity

We derive the low energy effective theory on a brane in six-dimensional chiral supergravity. The conical 3-brane singularities are resolved by introducing cylindrical codimension one 4-branes whose interiors are capped by a regular spacetime. The effective theory is described by the Brans-Dicke (BD) theory with the BD parameter given by $\omega_{\rm BD}=1/2$. The BD field is originated from a modulus which is associated with the scaling symmetry of the system. If the dilaton potentials on the branes preserve the scaling symmetry, the scalar field has an exponential potential in the Einstein frame. We show that the time dependent solutions driven by the modulus in the four-dimensional effective theory can be lifted up to the six-dimensional exact solutions found in the literature. Based on the effective theory, we discuss a possible way to stabilize the modulus to recover standard cosmology and also study the implication for the cosmological constant problem.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur

Cosmological evolution, future singularities, Little Rip and Pseudo-Rip in viable f(R) theories and their scalar-tensor counterpart

Modified f(R) gravity is one of the most promising candidates for dark energy, and even for the unification of the whole cosmological evolution, including the inflationary phase. Within this class of theories, the so-called viable modified gravities represent realistic theories that are capable of reproducing late-time acceleration, and satisfy strong constraints at local scales, where General Relativity is recovered. The present manuscript deals with the analysis of the cosmological evolution for some of these models, which indicates that the evolution may enter into a phantom phase, but the behavior may be asymptotically stable. Furthermore, the scalar-tensor equivalence of f(R) gravity is considered, which provides useful information about the possibility of the occurrence of a future singularity. The so-called Little Rip and Pseudo-Rip are also studied in the framework of this class of modified gravities.Comment: 20 pages. Extended version, new figures and additional analysis. Version to be published in Class. Quant. Gra