Related papers: Chameleon Cosmology
In many cases a massive nonlinear scalar field can lead to accelerated expansion in cosmological models. This paper contains mathematical results on this subject for flat Robertson-Walker space-time. Global existence to the coupled…
We construct a class of scalar field models coupled to matter that lead to the dependence of masses and coupling constants on the ambient matter density. Such models predict a deviation of couplings measured on the Earth from values…
Requiring all massless elementary fields to have conformal scaling symmetry removes a conflict between gravitational theory and the quantum theory of elementary particles and fields. Extending this postulate to the scalar field of the Higgs…
The accelerated expansion of the universe is a rather established fact in cosmology and many different models have been proposed as a viable explanation. Many of these models are based on the standard general relativistic framework of…
We investigate whether there are any cosmological evidences for a scalar field with a mass and coupling to matter which change accordingly to the properties of the astrophysical system it "lives in", without directly focusing on the…
The recently derived consistency relations for Large Scale Structure do not hold if the Equivalence Principle (EP) is violated. We show it explicitly in a toy model with two fluids, one of which is coupled to a fifth force. We explore the…
We tested a fifth force using cold atom experiments. The accelerated expansion of the universe implies the possibility of the presence of a scalar field throughout the universe driving the acceleration. This field would result in a…
Among the various possibilities to probe the theory behind the recent accelerated expansion of the universe, the energy conditions (ECs) are of particular interest, since it is possible to confront and constrain the many models, including…
A cosmological model that aims at solving the coincidence problem should show that dark energy and dark matter follow the same scaling solution from some time onward. At the same time, the model should contain a sufficiently long…
From the equivalence principle (EP) and experiments on gravitational (G) time dilation (GTD) it is proved that the standards of observers located in different ``distances'' from the earth are physically different with respect to each other.…
Recent observations of high-redshift supernovae seem to suggest that the global geometry of the Universe may be affected by a `cosmological constant', which acts to accelerate the expansion rate with time. But these data by themselves still…
Chameleon mechanism appearing in massive tensor-scalar theory of gravity can effectively reduce locally the non-minimal coupling between the scalar field and matter. This mechanism is invoked to reconcile large-scale departures from general…
We revisit a scenario in which the cosmological constant is cancelled by the potential energy of a slowly evolving scalar field, or "cosmon". The cosmon's evolution is tied to the cosmological constant by a feedback mechanism. This feedback…
It has been widely believed that variability of the fine-structure constant alpha would imply detectable violations of the weak equivalence principle. This belief is not justified in general. It is put to rest here in the context of the…
In the context of Effective Field Theory, the Hilbert space of states increases in an expanding universe. Hence, the time evolution cannot be unitary. The formation of structure is usually studied using effective field theory techniques. We…
The symmetron is a scalar field associated with the dark sector whose coupling to matter depends on the ambient matter density. The symmetron is decoupled and screened in regions of high density, thereby satisfying local constraints from…
A phenomenological model is proposed to explain the recent observed cosmological variation of the fine structure constant as an effect of the quantum vacuum, assuming a flat universe with cosmological constant $\Lambda$ in the cases…
A criterion to seek for compatibility of any given matter coupling with a fundamental theory of physics - assumed here to be the string theory - is developed. We call this criterion as"`compatibility check", and apply it to test different…
Based on a thoeretical model in which scalar fields play crucial roles, we propose a mechanism to better understand a cosmological constant expected to be small (nearly comparable with the critical density) but nonzero as suggested strongly…
We consider ultralight scalar dark matter that couples to right-handed neutrinos. Due to the high density of neutrinos in the early universe, the background neutrino density dominates the dynamics of the scalar field, and qualitatively…