The Lyman-alpha forest in f(R) modified gravity

Abstract

In this work, we analyze the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of chameleon-type f(R) gravity with the goal to assess whether the impact of such models is detectable in absorption line statistics. We carry out a set of hydrodynamical simulations with the cosmological simulation code MG-GADGET, including star formation and cooling effects, and create synthetic Lyman-$\alpha$ absorption spectra from the simulation outputs. We statistically compare simulations with f(R) and ordinary general relativity, focusing on flux probability distribution functions (PDFs) and flux power-spectra, an analysis of the column density and line width distributions, as well as the matter power spectrum. We find that the influence of f(R) gravity on the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest is rather small. Even models with strong modifications of gravity, like $|{\bar{f}}_{R0}|=10^{-4}$, do not change the statistical Lyman-$\alpha$ properties by more than 10%. The column density and line width distributions are hardly affected at all. It is therefore not possible to get competitive constraints on the background field $f_R$ using current observational data. An improved understanding of systematics in the observations and a more accurate modeling of the baryonic/radiative physics would be required to allow this in the future. The impact of f(R) on the matter power spectrum in our results is consistent with previous works.

10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to MNRAS

References in corpus (11)

• Models of f(R) Cosmic Acceleration that Evade Solar-System Tests
• HeII Reionization and its Effect on the IGM
• Non-linear Evolution of f(R) Cosmologies III: Halo Statistics
• A Direct Precision Measurement of the Intergalactic Lyman-alpha Opacity at 2<z<4.2
• Non-linear evolution of f(R) cosmologies II: power spectrum
• N-body Simulations for f(R) Gravity using a Self-adaptive Particle-Mesh Code
• Non-linear evolution of f(R) cosmologies I: methodology
• Possible evidence for an inverted temperature-density relation in the intergalactic medium from the flux distribution of the Lyman-alpha forest
• An improved measurement of the flux distribution of the Ly-alpha forest in QSO absorption spectra: the effect of continuum fitting, metal contamination and noise properties
• Dynamical Masses in Modified Gravity
• A Fast Route to Non-Linear Clustering Statistics in Modified Gravity Theories

Cited by in corpus (2)

• On the impact of $f(Q)$ gravity on the Large Scale Structure
• Realistic simulations of galaxy formation in f(R) modified gravity