Probing modifications of general relativity using current cosmological observations

Journal Article · Sat May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVD.81.103510· OSTI ID:21409699

Gongbo, Zhao; Bacon, David J; Koyama, Kazuya; Nichol, Robert C; Song, Yong-Seon ^[1]; Giannantonio, Tommaso ^[2]; Pogosian, Levon ^[3]; Silvestri, Alessandra ^[4]

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1. Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth, PO1 3FX (United Kingdom)
2. Argelander-Institut fuer Astronomie der Universitaet Bonn, Auf dem Huegel 71, D-53121 Bonn (Germany)
3. Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6 (Canada)
4. Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)

We test general relativity (GR) using current cosmological data: the CMB from WMAP5 [E. Komatsu et al. (WMAP Collaboration), Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 180, 330 (2009)], the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect from the cross correlation of the CMB with six galaxy catalogs [T. Giannantonio et al., Phys. Rev. D 77, 123520 (2008)], a compilation of supernovae (SNe) type Ia including the latest Sloan Digital Sky Survey SNe [R. Kessler et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 185, 32 (2009).], and part of the weak lensing (WL) data from the Canada-Franco-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey [L. Fu et al., Astron. Astrophys. 479, 9 (2008); M. Kilbinger et al., Astron. Astrophys. 497, 677 (2009).] that probe linear and mildly nonlinear scales. We first test a model in which the effective Newtonian constant {mu} and the ratio of the two gravitational potentials, {eta}, transit from the GR value to another constant at late times; in this case, we find that GR is fully consistent with the combined data. The strongest constraint comes from the ISW effect which would arise from this gravitational transition; the observed ISW signal imposes a tight constraint on a combination of {mu} and {eta} that characterizes the lensing potential. Next, we consider four pixels in time and space for each function {mu} and {eta}, and perform a principal component analysis, finding that seven of the resulting eight eigenmodes are consistent with GR within the errors. Only one eigenmode shows a 2{sigma} deviation from the GR prediction, which is likely to be due to a systematic effect. However, the detection of such a deviation demonstrates the power of our time- and scale-dependent principal component analysis methodology when combining observations of structure formation and expansion history to test GR.

• OSTI ID: 21409699
• Journal Information: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 81, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.81.103510; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0556-2821
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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