Radiative stability and observational constraints on dark energy and modified gravity [CEA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1811.03082


Radiative stability places strong constraints on general dark energy and modified gravity theories. We consider Horndeski scalar-tensor theories with luminally propagating gravitational waves (as extensively discussed in the wake of GW170817) and show that generically there is a tension between obtaining observable deviations from General Relativity (GR) in cosmology and the requirement of radiative stability. Using this as a constraint, we discuss the subsets of theories that are capable of yielding observable, radiatively stable departures from GR. A key consequence are significantly tightened cosmological parameter constraints on dark energy and modified gravity parameters, which we explicitly compute using data from the Planck, SDSS/BOSS and 6dF surveys.

Read this paper on arXiv…

J. Noller and A. Nicola
Thu, 8 Nov 18
26/72

Comments: 7 pages, 2 figures