Theories of Dark Energy with Screening Mechanisms
Abstract
Despite the overwhelming evidence for the existence of dark energy and dark matter, their underlying fundamental physics remains unknown. This review article explores the tantalizing possibility that the dark sector includes new light degrees of freedom that mediate long-range forces on cosmological scales. To ensure consistency with laboratory and solar system tests of gravity, some screening mechanism is necessary to "hide" these degrees of freedom locally. I will focus on two broad classes of screening theories, chameleons and symmetrons, which rely respectively on the scalar field acquiring a large mass or weak coupling in the presence of large ambient matter density.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1011.5909,
title = {Theories of Dark Energy with Screening Mechanisms},
author = {Justin Khoury},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1011.5909},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
8 pages. Plenary talk at the 22nd Rencontres de Blois on Particle Physics and Cosmology, Blois, France, July 15-20, 2010. To appear in the conference proceedings