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 $\Lambda$ 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 of screened modified gravity out of the static approximation: effects on matter distribution

In the context of scalar tensor theories for gravity, there is a universally adopted hypothesis when running N-body simulations that time derivatives in the equation of motion for the scalar field are negligible. In this work we propose to test this assumption for one specific scalar-tensor model with a gravity screening mechanism: the symmetron. To this end, we implemented the necessary modifications to include the non-static terms in the N-body code Ramses. We present test cases and results from cosmological simulations. Our main finding when comparing static vs. non-static simulations is that the global power spectrum is only slightly modified when taking into account the inclusion of non-static terms. On the contrary, we find that the calculation of the local power spectrum gives different measurements. Such results imply one must be careful when assuming the quasi-static approximation when investigating the environmental effects of modified gravity and screening mechanisms in structure formation of halos and voids distributions.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, matches version accepted for publication in PR

Shape of Clusters as a Probe of Screening Mechanisms in Modified Gravity

Scalar fields are crucial components in high energy physics and extensions of General Relativity. The fact they are not observed in the solar system may be due to a mechanism which screens their presence in high dense regions. We show how observations of the ellipticity of galaxy clusters can discriminate between models with and without scalar fields and even between different screening mechanisms. Using nowadays X-ray observations we put novel constraints on the different models.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, matches version accepted for publication in PR

Cosmological simulations with hydrodynamics of screened scalar-tensor gravity with non-universal coupling

In this paper we study the effects of letting the dark matter and the gas in the Universe couple to the scalar field of the symmetron model, a modified gravity theory, with varying coupling strength. We also search for a way to distinguish between universal and non-universal couplings in observations. The research is performed utilising a series of hydrodynamic, cosmological N-Body simulations, studying the resulting power spectra and galaxy halo properties, such as the density and temperature profiles. Results show that in the cases of universal couplings, the deviations in the baryon fraction from $\Lambda$CDM are smaller than in the cases of non-universal couplings throughout the halos. The same is apparent in the power spectrum baryon bias, defined as the ratio of gas to dark matter power spectrum. Deviations of the density profiles and power spectra from the $\Lambda$CDM reference values can differ significantly between dark matter and gas because the dark matter deviations are mostly larger than the deviations in the gas.Comment: Updated following referee reports, results unchange

Strongly Coupled Chameleon Fields: New Horizons in Scalar Field Theory

We show that as a result of non-linear self-interactions, scalar field theories that couple to matter much more strongly than gravity are not only viable but could well be detected by a number of future experiments, provided these are properly designed to do so.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs. Typos corrected. Comments added. Phys. Rev. Lett. in prin

CMB statistics in noncommutative inflation

Noncommutative geometry can provide effective description of physics at very short distances taking into account generic effects of quantum gravity. Inflation amplifies tiny quantum fluctuations in the early universe to macroscopic scales and may thus imprint high energy physics signatures in the cosmological perturbations that could be detected in the CMB. It is shown here that this can give rise to parity-violating modulations of the primordial spectrum and odd non-Gaussian signatures. The breaking of rotational invariance of the CMB provides constraints on the scale of noncommutativity that are competitive with the existing noncosmological bounds, and could explain the curious hemispherical asymmetry that has been claimed to be observed in the sky. This introduces also non-Gaussianity with peculiar shape- and scale-dependence, which in principle allows an independent cross-check of the presence of noncommutativity at inflation.Comment: 9 pages, no figure