English

Testing for w<-1 in the Solar System

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

In scalar-tensor theories of gravity, the equation of state of dark energy, w, can become smaller than -1 without violating any energy condition. The value of w today is tied to the level of deviations from general relativity which, in turn, is constrained by solar system and pulsars timing experiments. The conditions on these local constraints for w to be significantly less than -1 are established. It is demonstrated that this requires to consider theories that differ from the Jordan-Fierz-Brans-Dicke theory and that involve either a steep coupling function or a steep potential. It is also shown how a robust measurement of w could probe scalar-tensor theories.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0510208,
  title  = {Testing for w<-1 in the Solar System},
  author = {Jerome Martin and Carlo Schimd and Jean-Philippe Uzan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0510208},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, 1 figure