4,201 research outputs found
Astrophysical Configurations with Background Cosmology: Probing Dark Energy at Astrophysical Scales
We explore the effects of a positive cosmological constant on astrophysical
and cosmological configurations described by a polytropic equation of state. We
derive the conditions for equilibrium and stability of such configurations and
consider some astrophysical examples where our analysis may be relevant. We
show that in the presence of the cosmological constant the isothermal sphere is
not a viable astrophysical model since the density in this model does not go
asymptotically to zero. The cosmological constant implies that, for polytropic
index smaller than five, the central density has to exceed a certain minimal
value in terms of the vacuum density in order to guarantee the existence of a
finite size object. We examine such configurations together with effects of
in other exotic possibilities, such as neutrino and boson stars, and
we compare our results to N-body simulations. The astrophysical properties and
configurations found in this article are specific features resulting from the
existence of a dark energy component. Hence, if found in nature would be an
independent probe of a cosmological constant, complementary to other
observations.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables. Reference added. Mon. Not. Roy.
Astro. Soc in prin
Cosmological simulations with disformally coupled symmetron fields
We investigate statistical properties of the distribution of matter at
redshift zero in disformal gravity by using N-body simulations. The disformal
model studied here consists of a conformally coupled symmetron field with an
additional exponential disformal term. We conduct cosmological simulations to
discover the impact of the new disformal terms in the matter power spectrum,
halo mass function, and radial profile of the scalar field. We calculated the
disformal geodesic equation and the equation of motion for the scalar field. We
then implemented these equations into the N-body code ISIS, which is a modified
gravity version of the code RAMSES. The presence of a conformal symmetron field
increases both the power spectrum and mass function compared to standard
gravity on small scales. Our main finding is that the newly added disformal
terms tend to counteract these effects and can make the evolution slightly
closer to standard gravity. We finally show that the disformal terms give rise
to oscillations of the scalar field in the centre of the dark matter haloes.Comment: Updated version to reflect the journal accepted paper. Added one
figure. 7 pages, 7 figure
Symmetron with a non-minimal kinetic term
We investigate the compatibility of the Symmetron with dark energy by
introducing a non-minimal kinetic term associated with the Symmetron. In this
new model, the effect of the friction term appearing in the equation of motion
of the Symmetron field becomes more pronounced due to the non-minimal kinetic
term appearing in the action and, under specific conditions after symmetry
breaking, the universe experiences an accelerating phase which, in spite of the
large effective mass of the scalar field, lasts as long as the Hubble time
.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, to appear in JCA
Cosmic voids in modified gravity scenarios
Modified gravity (MG) theories aim to reproduce the observed acceleration of
the Universe by reducing the dark sector while simultaneously recovering
General Relativity (GR) within dense environments. Void studies appear to be a
suitable scenario to search for imprints of alternative gravity models on
cosmological scales. Voids cover an interesting range of density scales where
screening mechanisms fade out, which reaches from a density contrast close to their centers to close to their
boundaries. We present an analysis of the level of distinction between GR and
two modified gravity theories, the Hu-Sawicki and the symmetron theory.
This study relies on the abundance, linear bias, and density profile of voids
detected in n-body cosmological simulations. We define voids as connected
regions made up of the union of spheres with a {\it \textup{mean}} density
given by , but disconnected from any
other voids. We find that the height of void walls is considerably affected by
the gravitational theory, such that it increases for stronger gravity
modifications. Finally, we show that at the level of dark matter n-body
simulations, our constraints allow us to distinguish between GR and MG models
with and . Differences of best-fit values for
MG parameters that are derived independently from multiple void probes may
indicate an incorrect MG model. This serves as an important consistency check.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure
An analytic model for the transition from decelerated to accelerated cosmic expansion
We consider the scenario where our observable universe is devised as a
dynamical four-dimensional hypersurface embedded in a five-dimensional bulk
spacetime, with a large extra dimension, which is the {\it generalization of
the flat FRW cosmological metric to five dimensions}. This scenario generates a
simple analytical model where different stages of the evolution of the universe
are approximated by distinct parameterizations of the {\it same} spacetime. In
this model the evolution from decelerated to accelerated expansion can be
interpreted as a "first-order" phase transition between two successive stages.
The dominant energy condition allows different parts of the universe to evolve,
from deceleration to acceleration, at different redshifts within a narrow era.
This picture corresponds to the creation of bubbles of new phase, in the middle
of the old one, typical of first-order phase transitions. Taking today, we find that the cross-over from deceleration to acceleration
occurs at , regardless of the equation of state in the very
early universe. In the case of primordial radiation, the model predicts that
the deceleration parameter "jumps" from to at . At the present time and the equation of state of the
universe is , in agreement with observations and some
theoretical predictions.Comment: The abstract and introduction are improved and the discussion section
is expanded. A number of references are adde
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